In a judgment delivered in October 2025, the General Court emphasizes again the importance of the principle of impartiality. There must be sufficient guarantees to exclude any legitimate doubt as to possible bias of the decision-makers and persons involved in proceedings. In the case decided, objective impartiality has not been complied with, also because two persons working in the same unit as the applicant (colleagues) had been in charge of conducting an administrative investigation against the applicant, which later led to the sanction of a warning. The General Court also decided on the question by whom the cost have to be borne which the applicant incurred in disciplinary proceedings that lead to the infliction of a warning. The Court decided – against the explicit wording of the Staff Regulations – that these (lawyer’s) cost had to be borne by the institution. The Court finally decided that the applicant receives 5000 Euro in compensation for non-material harm suffered.
