Action brought on 26 July 2017 — Barata v Parliament

(Case T-467/17)

(2017/C 347/42)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: Carlos Manuel Henriques Barata (Lisbon, Portugal) (represented by: G. Pandey, D. Rovetta and V. Villante, lawyers)

Defendant: European Parliament

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on four pleas in law arguing that there was a breach of Article 25 of the EU staff regulations and of Article 296 TFEU resulting from a manifest error in the assessment of the applicant’s theoretical skills and manifest error in the assessment of facts, considering the inauthenticity of the questionnaire certificate allegedly corresponding to the document submitted by the applicant during the competition. The manifest error occurred as a consequence of lack of supervision by the Parliament over the due diligence of a subcontractor entrusted with the assessment of the applications in the 2016 CAST selection proceedings. This as such had an adverse impact on the obligations to state sufficient reasons to the applicant.

The applicant also relies on the breach of the effective judicial protection principle by negating his right of defence and rights to be heard, thus amounting to a breach of Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and submits a plea of illegality and inapplicability of the Notice of Competition EP/CAST/S/16/2016.

The applicant also submits that the Parliament acted ultra vires by delegating selection procedure to the Ecole de Maîtrise Automobile (hereinafter subcontractor), which has not been bound by the EU Staff Regulations and internal EU Institutions Code of Conducts. According to the applicant, this amounts to a breach of the notice of competition and of Article 30 of the Staff Regulation in combination with Annex III to the Staff Regulation reinforcing abovementioned breach of the duty of sound and good administration.

The applicant further relies on a breach of Article 1 of the Staff Regulations, of the principle of non-discrimination and of the principle of proportionality with regard to the conduct of the competition by the Parliament’s and/or the subcontractor and in relation to limiting the choice of a second language for candidates participating in this call for expression of interests.

Finally the applicant argues that there has been a breach of the principle of equal opportunity as well as a breach of Article 296(2) of the TFEU and Article 25 of the Staff Regulations — with regards to EP and the subcontractor’s failure to state reasons for their decisions, reinforced by lack of supervision over the latter. Applicant submits that it amounts to a breach of the Notice of Competition EP/CAST/S/16/2016, breach of the Principle of Reasonable and sound Administration and breach of the applicant's legitimate expectations and of the principle of equality.

(1)  Call for expressions of interest — contract staff — functional group I — Drivers (f/m) EP/CAST/S/16/2016 (OJ 2016, C 131 A/01)