Update as of 12.05.2025 May 2025: some of you asked me for un updates for the case. A very good idea! The case T-108/24 [1] (about the disciplinary sanction and the disciplinary procedure [2]) was subject of a public hearing at the Tribunal on 6.05.2025.
Here are some points that I find interesting from what came out during the hearing:
– a fact of defending oneself robustly in a disciplinary procedure and not admitting doing something wrong (in my case confirming my right to write private emails as a private citizen and send them from my private email address due to extremely serious political context) cannot be considered as an aggravating fact to increase the sanction. It indicates possible violation by DG HR basis of our rights against self-incrimination and forced inculpation ‘nemo tenetur seipsum accusare [3]‘ means roughly ‘no one has to accuse themselves’.
– Article 10 of Annex IX of the staff regulations [4] provides a non-exhaustive list of conditions for alleviating or aggravating facts and it cannot be cherry-picked [5]. In my case IDOC and DG HR just selected the points that they considered aggravating, leaving the rest unsaid.
– being a trade union member cannot be an aggravating fact, because ‘you should have known better, you work with the staff regulations [6]‘. This interpretation could violate fundamental rights [7] of freedom of joining trade unions.
– ‘hypothetical’ repeated offences or ‘reoffending’ (fr. recidive) does not legally exist. We cannot judge someone as though they had repeated an offence simply because there are no guarantees that the person will not repeat the action. How do you prove you won’t do something? And how can that failure to prove then be taken as though you had already done that something? IDOC and DG HR first deducted my possible “recidive” because I claimed I had had right to express myself in writing and then they applied the assumption outlined above as an aggravating fact.
On the negative side:
– the Court did not look into actions of IDOC, whose reports contained invented accusations and wrong case law.
– although the case is about freedom of expression, the Tribunal did not ask any questions from this angle.
– as the same Tribunal decided in my previous case (T-569/23, see below for more information) that the Commission can remove someone from a promotion list just by opening a disciplinary procedure no matter the reasons, it may be complicated in the future if this same Tribunal has to admit that the SR and the Charter of Fundamental Rights [8] were violated in the same disciplinary procedure.
Since the case is a about our fundamental rights let’s see if the EU court says stop to progressive unravelling of our rights.
On 24.9.2024 there was a 2.5 hour hearing at the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg in the case T-569/23 [9] (removal from a promotion list). I would like to thanks all of you who could be present in the court.
On 22.01.2025 I learned that I had lost that case. The Tribunal had not agreed to join both cases and decided to ignore the context, and to judge the result (removal) before the reason (disciplinary procedure). Blunders in the IDOC [10] report were also ignored. In spite of this innovative approach presented by the Tribunal, I decided to file an appeal 26.03.2025. It was argued by the Commission that any promotion withheld [11] could subsequently be granted, maybe even years down the line, when the DG quota is spent and without there being any proves of keeping a promotion in the fridge for future use. Nevertheless, apparently this can happen, though there are no examples of it ever having happened.
If there is any news you will hear from me.
Stay tuned!
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If you also think that the current disciplinary system in the Commission and arbitrariness of DG HR’s decisions should be judicially verified, you can help me by contributing to the elevated legal costs via the Go Fund Me [12] platform.
If I am successful and the Commission is obliged to reimburse my legal costs, you will be duly reimbursed.
I would like to thank you for reading this text and for your possible contribution.
If you think that defending our fundamental rights is worth your contribution, please share the story and the link with your friends and colleagues.
I went to court because I do believe that defending our staff and civil rights is extremely important and if not stopped the system will continue to deteriorate.
Feel free to contact me [13] for details, to share your own stories or to offer encouragement.