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Mr. Mousa appealed. As regards Mr. Mousa’s request for an oral hearing, the UNAT held that he did not provide a compelling reason why an oral hearing should be granted in this appeal. As the case deals with the issue of receivability ratione materiae, an oral hearing is not necessary and would not “assist in the expeditious and fair disposal of the case” within the meaning of Article 18(1) of the UNAT’s Rules of Procedure. The UNAT also found that Mr. Mousa’s appeal did not refer to any of the grounds of appeal mentioned in Article 2(1) of the UNAT Statute. The only submission regarding the...

UNAT considered an appeal by Mr. Zaqqout. As regards an oral hearing, UNAT found that since the application was dismissed on grounds of receivability, Mr. Zaqqout’s arguments were not persuasive enough so as to justify an oral hearing at this stage. Some of the issues raised in the appeal were connected to the merits of Mr. Zaqqout’s application and did not meet the threshold of the receivability assessment. Since Mr. Zaqqout was made aware at the very early stage of the proceedings of the UNRWA’s allegation that he had been notified of the impugned decision on 30 December 2018, he should have...

Mr. Zeid appealed. As a preliminary matter, UNAT dismissed Mr. Zeid's request for an oral hearing finding that the factual and legal issues arising from the appeal had already been clearly defined by the parties; and that an oral hearing would not “assist in the expeditious and fair disposal of the case”. UNAT held that the UNRWA DT correctly found that there was no evidence of a request for decision review, that the e-mail exchanges whereby Mr. Zeid had made inquiries regarding the reasons for the contested decision were not a request for decision review, but rather were informal attempts to...

UNAT held that the Appellant’s claim, that a final decision on her 2013 request for post reclassification was only issued in 2019, could not be considered as it was raised for the first time at the appellate level. UNAT held that UNRWA DT correctly found that the 12 December 2014 e-mail which informed her that all classifications were on hold constituted an administrative decision because it rejected her request for immediate reclassification. UNAT held that to allow the Appellant’s argument that the postponement or freezing of requests for reclassification does not constitute an...

UNAT considered an appeal by Ms. Matahen. UNAT held that her appeal was defective in that it failed to identify any of the five grounds set out in Article 2(1) of the Statute of the Appeals Tribunal as forming the legal basis of her appeal. With regard to Ms. Matahen’s written request for an extension of time to file an application, UNAT held that the UNRWA DT did not err in finding that her allegation that she had only found out on 17 August 2020 that another similar request for Early Voluntary Retirement had been granted by UNRWA, did not constitute an exceptional circumstance, namely, a...

UNAT noted that UNRWA DT’s analysis of whether Mr. Faour had timely requested review of the decision not to renew his contract, the UNRWA DT focused on Mr. Faour’s omnibus letter (of 17 December 2018) to his superior containing many complaints, including a request for review of his performance review, but no request for review of the contested decision (the non-renewal of his contract). UNAT found, however, that other correspondence from Mr. Faour that was within the statutory 60 days to request a decision review did fulfill the minimum criteria required by UNAT judgments: it identified the...

The staff member applies for revision of Judgment on account that both he and UNAT were unaware of various UNRWA DT Judgments dealing with service-incurred injury cases. UNAT rejected the application for revision on account that the nature of the injury, whether service-incurred or not, had no bearing on whether the staff member was debarred from receiving compensation. The reason he was denied compensation was because he did not assign his right of action, not because of the nature of his injury, service-incurred or not. Furthermore, UNAT also reasoned prior UNRWA DT judgments do not...

UNAT held that UNRWA DT did not commit an error in procedure, such as to affect the decision of the case pursuant to Article 2(1) of the UNAT Statute. UNAT rejected the argument that the fact that the Appellant did not receive the recordings of the hearing or transcript affected the decision of the case. UNAT held that the Appellant merely repeated arguments raised before UNRWA DT. UNAT accepted UNRWA DT’s finding that the Appellant had ample opportunity to respond to allegations and provide comments on the investigation report and exhibits. UNAT held that UNRWA DT made fundamental errors of...

UNAT agreed with UNRWA DT that the legal framework did not establish an automatic right of the staff member to the extension of his or her service beyond the age of retirement upon the submission of the pertinent application, even if she or he satisfied those two conditions. However, UNAT held that, contrary to UNRWA DT’s finding, the Administration has the discretion to deny a request to extend a staff member’s service beyond retirement only in exceptional cases and on account of the interests of UNRWA, which must be reflected clearly and precisely in the reasoning for the decision. UNAT held...

UNAT considered an appeal centred on the receivability of the appeal to the JAB. The Appellant had sought a waiver of the time limit to appeal before JAB on the basis that his legal counsel was away from Syria for medical treatment for a year. UNAT held that there were no exceptional circumstances to justify the Appellant’s 18-month delay in filing his appeal pending either his counsel’s return or replacement. UNAT held that the JAB properly considered that there were no exceptional circumstances justifying a waiver of the time limit to file an appeal to the JAB. UNAT dismissed the appeal and...