Judgment 484
48th Session, 1982
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 2(B)
Extract:
Vide Judgment 485, consideration 1(b).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 485
Keywords:
appointment; competition; refund; terms of appointment; travel expenses;
Consideration 1(B)
Extract:
Vide Judgment 485, consideration 1(b).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 485
Keywords:
appointment; discretion; limits; refund; travel expenses;
Judgment 483
48th Session, 1982
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 2(B)
Extract:
Vide Judgment 485, consideration 1(b).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 485
Keywords:
appointment; discretion; limits; refund; travel expenses;
Consideration 2(B)
Extract:
Vide Judgment 485, consideration 1 (b).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 485
Keywords:
appointment; competition; refund; terms of appointment; travel expenses;
Judgment 479
47th Session, 1982
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary
Extract:
The complainant became disabled following a disease contracted during a one-month mission. The complainant receives an invalidity pension. His incapacity was assessed by the Tribunal at 100 per cent. The amount of the pension must be redetermined. The deductions made of a university retirement pension were unwarranted they must be reimbursed, with the amounts being indexed against inflation and with interest [2 per cent]; costs.
Keywords:
amount; disability benefit; illness; incapacity; invalidity; rate; reckoning; refund; service-incurred;
Judgment 454
46th Session, 1981
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Considerations
Extract:
The question is whether a citizen of the United States who has been employed by an international organisation and who on retirement has elected to take part of the pension due to him in the form of a lump sum is entitled to be reimbursed by the organisation for the tax levied by the government of the United States on the lump-sum payment. He is not so entitled; see Judgment No. 426.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 426
Keywords:
commutation; lump-sum; pension; refund; tax;
Judgment 441
45th Session, 1980
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 7
Extract:
The International Patent Institute was integrated into the European Patent Organisation. The applicable provisions do not provide for the reimbursement of travel expenses. The abolition of the allowance, which was paid the complainant in the past and which was a considerable advantage for him, may have prompted him to accept his appointment. This suggests the breach of an acquired right. The complainant is entitled to the reimbursement of the cost of travel on home leave for himself and his family.
Keywords:
acquired right; allowance; amendment to the rules; discontinuance; home leave; merger; provision; refund; staff regulations and rules; terms of appointment; travel expenses;
Judgment 426
45th Session, 1980
Pan American Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 9
Extract:
The complainant claims reimbursement of the tax payable on a lump-sum payment from the pension fund. He relies on the principle of equality of treatment with two officials who had opted for a repayment of their own contributions and to whom the organisation reimbursed taxation payable in respect of those contributions. "The Tribunal considers that there is a categorical distinction between persons who elect to take a repayment of contributions and those who elect to take a lump-sum payment in part commutation of a pension; and that the principle of equality does not require the two categories to be treated in the same way."
Keywords:
commutation; contributions; equal treatment; lump-sum; pension; refund; tax;
Considerations 4-5
Extract:
The complainant's contract stated: "Income tax reimbursable on PAHO/WHO earnings only". There is not in the contract nor in statutory provisions a comprehensive definition of "earnings". In its natural meaning the word covers all the emoluments and benefits paid by the employer to the staff member. "In the opinion of the Tribunal 'earnings' do not, in the absence of an express provision to the contrary, include a lump-sum payment, payable not by the employer but by the Fund in which the staff member has in effect invested a part of his earnings."
Keywords:
condition; lump-sum; refund; tax;
Judgment 366
41st Session, 1978
International Patent Institute
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 11
Extract:
"[E]xpatriation, education and leave expense allowances are matters of importance to someone who joins the staff of an organisation. The question therefore arises whether the outright abolition of such allowances would not violate an acquired right. There is, however, no acquired right to the amount and the conditions of payment of such allowances. Indeed the staff member should expect amendments to be prompted by changes in circumstances if, for example, the cost of living rises or falls, or the organisation reforms its structure, or even finds itself in financial difficulty."
Keywords:
acquired right; allowance; amendment to the rules; amount; discontinuance; education expenses; home leave; non-resident allowance; payment; refund;
Judgment 365
41st Session, 1978
International Patent Institute
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 11
Extract:
Vide Judgment 366, consideration 11.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 366
Keywords:
acquired right; allowance; amendment to the rules; amount; discontinuance; education expenses; home leave; non-resident allowance; payment; refund;
Judgment 363
41st Session, 1978
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 12
Extract:
"It is an attractive idea that [the material rule] should be invoked only to the extent necessary to relieve the financial hardship. But that would mean a reimbursement and not an allowance. The object of an allowance is to settle in advance the difficult questions that often arise on reimbursement [...] and to let the staff member know from the first what he has to spend."
Keywords:
allowance; difference; purpose; refund;
Judgment 349
40th Session, 1978
European Southern Observatory
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 34
Extract:
"The organisation asks the Tribunal to order the complainant and the interveners to pay an equitable contribution towards the lawyers' fees incurred by the organisation. It is true that the organisation has succeeded against the interveners and on some of the claims made by the complainant. But it has never been the practice of the Tribunal to order the complainant to pay the whole or any part of an organisation's costs even when the claim has entirely failed."
Keywords:
counsel; no award of costs; organisation; practice; refund; tribunal;
Judgment 328
39th Session, 1977
Pan American Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary
Extract:
The complainants claim benefits dependent on their having non-local status. WHO Staff Rule 280.7 sets a retroactive time limit of one year for such claims. The complainants knew what they were doing at the time of recruitment when they signed a modified appointment form in order to obtain their employment. The organization may have acted reprehensibly, but its conduct amounts neither to concealment nor to bad faith: the organization may therefore rely on the material provision.
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: WHO STAFF RULE 280.7
ILOAT Judgment(s): 272
Keywords:
allowance; consequence; good faith; non-local status; non-retroactivity; organisation; receivability of the complaint; refund; time limit;
Consideration 3
Extract:
"If it can be established that the conduct of the organization was such as to conceal from the complainants in bad faith that they had the claims which they were now putting forward, then the organization could not in the opinion of the Tribunal rely upon the rule [which disallows requests for benefits more than twelve months from the date at which the initial payment would have been due]."
Keywords:
allowance; consequence; good faith; local status; non-local status; non-retroactivity; organisation; receivability of the complaint; refund; request by a party;
Judgment 292
38th Session, 1977
European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 6
Extract:
The provision on school fees "provides for an allowance and not the reimbursement of fees; it does not require proof of the amount actually spent".
Keywords:
allowance; condition; education expenses; evidence; refund;
Consideration 23
Extract:
"[T]he characteristic that distinguishes an allowance from a reimbursement is that the recipient of an allowance cannot, provided that the conditions for its receipt are fulfilled, be made to account for what he does with the money. It is in his discretion to spend it as he likes."
Keywords:
allowance; difference; refund;
Consideration 13
Extract:
The complaint seeks the refund of education expenses. "On [the first day of every month] the organisation, if the complainant is right, acted adversely towards him by failing to adopt the measure prescribed [...]. However, the time limit of three months, running backwards from the [date of] application [...] means that claims in respect of [earlier] payments are time-barred."
Keywords:
allowance; continuing breach; education expenses; injury; payment; receivability of the complaint; refund; time bar;
Consideration 25
Extract:
" [I]t is within the power of the Director-General to lay down by means of an instruction criteria for determining what is or is not 'reasonably near', provided that in doing so he has proper regard to the nature and purpose of the [material provision]. [...] He must be guided by accessibility for school children [...] to lay down [...] that for every official [...] every school within a radius of 50 kilometers [...] is to be deemed accessible is not a proper exercise of the power. Accordingly the provision to this effect [...] is not binding upon the complainant."
Keywords:
administrative instruction; competence; condition; criteria; education expenses; enforcement; executive head; interpretation; provision; refund; staff regulations and rules;
Judgment 271
36th Session, 1976
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 5
Extract:
The organization contends that when reimbursing travel expenses for home leave account must be taken of costs. "These [...] are questions of policy to be solved before the regulation is framed so that the solution can be embodied in the regulation itself. Once framed, the regulation is conclusive on questions of broad principle and personnel policy. [The Director-General's discretionary authority] to apply it only when he is satisfied that the organization is getting its money's worth cannot be derived from its terms."
Keywords:
amount; discretion; enforcement; home leave; limits; organisation's interest; provision; purpose; refund; staff regulations and rules; travel expenses;
Consideration 6
Extract:
"[I]t is permissible for the Director-General to determine that staff members whose home is in the country of their duty station are not eligible, since the visit would not then serve the purpose of maintaining international links. But once it is accepted that, as the Tribunal has held, on its proper construction the regulation provides that eligible members shall be paid the whole cost, it is not permissible for the Director-General to say that in certain circumstances only those members will be eligible who are prepared to pay part of the cost themselves."
Keywords:
amount; condition; dependant; discretion; home leave; limits; rate; refund;
Consideration 4
Extract:
The partial payment of travel expenses would be contrary to the language of the applicable text and inconsistent with the principle of the regulation. "It is agreed that the object of the regulation is not primarily to make a monetary concession to a staff member. It is to the advantage of the organization [...] that staff members should maintain their links with their home countries [...] If the organization pays for only a part of the journey, the principle of home leave will depend on the willingness and ability of the staff member to pay for the rest himself."
Keywords:
amount; home leave; organisation's interest; purpose; rate; refund; travel expenses;
Considerations 4-5
Extract:
"A rule which applies only to the longer journeys may result in links with the more distant countries being lost. Moreover, if the Director-General has power to rule that only a proportion of the cost of the whole journey need be paid, there can be no reason why he should not in all cases fix the proportion at whatever percentage he thinks the organization can afford." [The Tribunal has established that reasonable expenses should be paid for the whole journey.]
Keywords:
amount; consequence; home leave; rate; refund; travel expenses;
Consideration 3
Extract:
"The words [in the material provision] are an abbreviated way of saying that the organization shall pay the reasonable expenses of the journey to and from the home. This means the reasonable expenses for the whole journey and not just a part of it. The Director-General may settle the details of the way in which the regulation is to be applied - he may, for example, rule that reasonable expenses do not cover first-class travel or an indirect route - but he may not alter the sense of it."
Keywords:
amount; home leave; interpretation; organisation's duties; provision; purpose; rate; refund; staff regulations and rules; travel expenses;
Judgment 270
36th Session, 1976
European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 2
Extract:
The provision concerning the reimbursement of travel expenses "is to enable staff members and their family to visit their place of origin from time to time. Hence it does not apply in respect of a wife and children who live in the place of origin."
Keywords:
condition; dependant; home leave; purpose; refund; residence; travel expenses;
Consideration 2
Extract:
The applicable provision provides for a lump-sum payment of travel expenses. "[T]he amount of expenses paid by the organisation will not vary, however often the staff member and his family travel each year from the duty station to the place of origin and whatever means of transport they use."
Keywords:
allowance; amount; refund; travel expenses;
Judgment 261
35th Session, 1975
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 3
Extract:
The complainant claims an indemnity to cover the cost of travel expenses incurred in connection with the proceedings. "[T]he organization did not agree to pay these expenses, the expenses do not arise out of this claimant's terms of appointment and were not in the opinion of the Tribunal reasonably necessary for the presentation of his claims. This claim therefore fails on the merits."
Keywords:
complainant; internal appeal; internal appeals body; refund; request by a party; travel expenses;
Judgment 221
31st Session, 1973
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 7
Extract:
"The complainant does not allege that an obligation to pay the fees and expenses incident to an appeal is one of the terms of his appointment or the subject of any provision in the Staff Regulations [which contain no] general or implied obligation to pay costs. For this reason, the Tribunal is not competent to order the relief requested."
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; counsel; internal appeal; internal appeals body; organisation's duties; refund;
Judgment 177
26th Session, 1971
United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 4(C)
Extract:
It appears from the inquiries which the Tribunal has made of the intergovernmental organisations that the complainants cannot rely upon established "practice". Complainants would be entitled to the reimbursement of the taxes paid only if their families' residence in a place other than that of their activity, and consequently their liability to taxation in that place were justified by special reasons. "The complainants must therefore take the consequences of a situation which was not forced upon them."
Keywords:
condition; duty station; refund; residence; tax;
Consideration 4(A)
Extract:
The practice of other organisations amounts to a rule, "that is, the officials of the organisation are entitled to reimbursement as provided [of national taxes], to the extent that it accords with the practice of the other organisations. Alternatively, the [other] organisations [...] have no relevant 'practice' or may have adopted a 'practice' in cases which are not identical with or even similar to those of officials of the respondent organisation. On this hypothesis it cannot be asserted either that the officials of the organisation are always entitled or that they are never entitled to the reimbursement of the taxes paid by them."
Keywords:
binding character; practice; refund; rule of another organisation; tax;
Consideration 4(A)
Extract:
If an official or his family resides in a locality other than that where he works, "and if on that account he is liable to tax, he cannot as a rule insist on reimbursement. Exceptions to this rule are allowable only in special circumstances, for example where the [...] official is appointed on a temporary contract or is unable to find suitable accommodation in the locality where he works."
Keywords:
condition; consequence; difference; duty station; refund; residence; right; tax;
Preamble
Extract:
The President of the Tribunal issued an order to the Registrar instructing him "to make inquiries of the intergovernmental organisations with headquarters at Geneva concerning the practice followed by them in respect of reimbursement of tax paid on earned income by members of their staff".
Keywords:
inquiry; investigation; order; practice; refund; rule of another organisation; tax;
Consideration 4(B)
Extract:
"[I]nternational officials who are United States nationals and do not fulfil certain special conditions laid down by the legislation of their own country are liable for certain United States taxes which have been reimbursed by several of the intergovernmental organisations. Although there may be a 'practice' with regard to such officials, the complainants cannot, however, rely on it since their position is entirely different."
Keywords:
equal treatment; practice; refund; tax;
Consideration 3
Extract:
"The term 'national income taxes' [...] should be interpreted according to the law of the country in which the taxes whose reimbursement is claimed are levied. It will not therefore necessarily have the same meaning in respect of taxes levied in unitary and in federal States." In the present case, the interpretation should be based on the usual terminology of Swiss tax law: national taxes in Switzerland include cantonal and local taxes as well as federal taxes. The cantonal and local taxes paid by complainants in the Canton of Bern where their families continue to reside must be regarded as 'national income taxes' and in principle be reimbursed.
Keywords:
definition; domestic law; enforcement; refund; tax;
Judgment 155
24th Session, 1970
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 3
Extract:
There is no provision in the Staff Rules for the reimbursement of travel expenses and the payment of a subsistence allowance to officials wishing to attend the meetings of the appeals bodies at which their claims are heard. The complainant therefore has no right to such reimbursement. The organization undertook voluntarily to pay his travel expenses for the purpose of his appearance before the appeals body.
Keywords:
internal appeals body; organisation's duties; refund; right; travel expenses;
Judgment 149
23rd Session, 1970
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 4
Extract:
The applicable provision "is specific that a staff member can only designate another staff member to represent him before the committee. It follows that any advice sought from some outside source must be paid for by the staff member himself."
Keywords:
complainant; counsel; internal appeal; internal appeals body; refund;
Judgment 148
23rd Session, 1970
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 9
Extract:
"It appears from the organization's statements, as reasonably interpreted, that the complainant is entirely exempted from the expenses of the Medical Board if the rate of incapacity originally fixed is changed, it being irrelevant whether such a change results from the independent decision of the Director-General or is ordered by the Tribunal. It follows that as the complainant's claims have been partly recognised by the Tribunal his claim for the reimbursement of the share of expenses attributed to him is well founded."
Keywords:
cost of expert inquiry; refund; right;
