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UNAT held that the complaints against the Appellant were very serious and intolerable for any employer. UNAT held that UNDT had correctly concluded that the case against the Appellant stood substantiated and corroborated and the evidence sufficiently supported the charge of improperly soliciting and receiving money from local people in exchange for their recruitment and service as UN staff. UNAT held that during the teleconference the Appellant had produced two impostors as witnesses, who testified that they had lied to the investigators and made false allegations against the Appellant. UNAT...

UNAT considered an appeal by the Secretary-General against the judgment on the merits (UNDT/2011/054) and two further appeals by both the Secretary-General and the Applicant of the judgment on compensation (UNDT/2011/131). Relying on its previous holding in Bertucci (2011/UNAT/114), UNAT held that UNDT erred in finding that the Administration violated the Applicant’s due process rights, as no actual prejudice was found. UNAT held that the established facts, as admitted by the Applicant, clearly demonstrated that he engaged in the sexual harassment of local employees and used his position of...

UNAT considered an appeal, in which the Appellant claimed that UNDT committed procedural errors in allowing the Secretary-General to embark on a de novo fact-finding inquiry and that the disciplinary measure of separation was disproportionate. UNAT held that it was within the competence of UNDT to hold oral hearings as well as to order the production of evidence for fair and expeditious disposal of the proceedings. UNAT held that the Administration bears the burden of establishing that the alleged misconduct, for which a disciplinary measure has been taken against a staff member, occurred and...

UNAT considered an appeal by the Secretary-General. UNAT held that the facts upon which the sanction was based had not been established by clear and convincing evidence, albeit for different reasons than given by UNDT. UNAT held that UNDT’s determination that the evidence from two witnesses had little probative value was correct because although written witness statements taken under oath can be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence the facts to support the dismissal of a staff member when a statement is not made under oath or affirmation, there must be some other indicia of...

UNAT considered two appeals, one by Ms S. Nourain and one by Ms A Nourain, against judgment No. UNDT/2012/142. UNAT dismissed Ms A. Nourain’s appeal as she was not a party to the proceedings and had no standing to appeal. UNAT held that the facts were not disputed; the misconduct had been established and so had its seriousness. UNAT held that it could not say that the sanction of dismissal was unfair or disproportionate to the seriousness of the offences. UNAT dismissed the appeal of Ms A Nourain as not receivable and the appeal of Ms S. Nourain on the merits.

UNAT considered an appeal by the Secretary-General. UNAT held that it was satisfied that Ms Akello’s involvement in the private company Blessed Seasons, which was on a UN list of companies providing escort vehicle services, met the standard of business activity and enterprise prohibited by former Staff Regulation 1. 2(m) and that her activities amounted to a conflict of interest. UNAT held that, in ruling otherwise, UNDT erred in law and fact and the Secretary-General’s appeal succeeded on that ground. On the issue of whether the very fact that the Internal Affairs Unit investigation, having...

UNAT considered an appeal by the Commissioner-General and a cross-appeal by Mr Jibara. UNAT held that UNRWA DT lacked jurisdiction to decide on the scope of the Oslo Accords signed by Israel and the Palestinian National Authority or the legality of the detention and imprisonment. UNAT recalled that it was not the role of UNDT to substitute its own decision for that of the Administration. UNAT recalled that, having established misconduct and the seriousness of the incident, UNAT cannot review the level of a sanction imposed except in cases of obvious absurdity or flagrant arbitrariness. UNAT...

UNAT considered two appeals by Ms Perelli, against judgment Nos. UNDT/2012/034 and UNDT/2012/100. On the matter of due process, given Ms Perelli had the opportunity to rebut allegations and contents of the relevant report, UNAT held that these procedural steps were part of her due process entitlements and, to the extent that UNDT found the Administration to have respected these procedural steps, UNAT upheld the finding of UNDT. UNAT held that the Investigation Panel report satisfied neither the remit given to it nor the statutory requirements of ST/AI/371. UNAT held that Ms Perelli was...

UNAT considered two appeals by the Secretary-General of judgment Nos. UNDT/2011/106 and UNDT/2011/192. UNAT held that it was satisfied that the Complainant did not share the Applicant’s desire to pursue a sexual relationship and that the Applicant’s conduct was unwelcome. UNAT held that the transmission by the Applicant of a photograph of his genitalia to a female colleague, much less a colleague under his supervision, could at its best, as found by the Joint Disciplinary Committee (JDC), be characterised as outrageous and most probably unwanted. UNAT held that the Secretary-General had clear...

UNAT preliminarily dismissed the Appellant’s Application for Confidentiality and then considered the merits of the Appeal, which contained three grounds. With respect to the first ground, UNAT held that UNDT did not err in concluding that due process was satisfied if the staff member could comment on anonymous witness statements providing evidence against him. UNAT noted that the reasons for withholding the identities of the victims and for not producing them at trial were contained in the OIOS Investigation Report that was sent to the Appellant, thus the conditions for the admissibility for...