The Applicant challenges both the substance, and procedures, pertaining to the several decisions made by the Respondent: (i) to declare his employment redundant based on the abolition of the Policy Division; (ii) not to give the Applicant a position equivalent to the one he previously occupied; (iii) to institute panels for selection of staff to positions in the successor unit and the failure to apply the proper redundancy criteria; (iv) not to select him for a suitable position; (v ) to give him a below norm merit increase for 1994; (vi) not to revise more positively his 1994 PRR; and (vii) to prepare his 1994 PRR without according him due process.
 

Summarily dismissed.

The issues for determination by the Tribunal are (i) whether the administrative review sought by the Applicant was time-barred with the result that he had failed to exhaust internal remedies, (ii) whether the Respondent in making a determination on the appropriate assistance to be given to the Applicant pursuant to paragraph 14.02 of Staff Rule 7.01 acted arbitrarily and thus abused its discretion, and (iii) whether the Respondent in making such determination had discriminated against the Applicant vis-à-vis those staff members retrenched pursuant to the 1987 Reorganization of the Bank.
 

This case concerns the interpretation of Staff Rule 7.01, Sections 8.01 and 8.08 (b). The issues raised involve the calculation of the Applicant’s leave and severance payments. It also raises the question of which version of this Rule should apply and other related matters.
 

In this case the Applicant has, pursuant to Section 10.2 (f) of the Staff Retirement Plan (SRP), appealed from a decision of the Pension Benefits Administration Committee (PBAC) denying his request for a disability pension. 

The Applicant, a computer system specialist with the Bank since 1973, requests the rescission of the decision of March 24, 1995 by which the Vice President, Management and Personnel Services, rejected the recommendations of the Appeals Committee concerning the appeals she had filed with the Committee against her performance review for the period March 1992 to February 1993 and against the Bank’s decision of June 10, 1994 to terminate her employment on grounds of unsatisfactory performance. She also requests the rescission of the previous decisions which had led to the decision to terminate her employment, namely:

The Applicant does not deny that she filed her application to the Tribunal twenty-eight days after the expiry of the ninety-day period prescribed by Article II of the Statute of the Tribunal. However, she invokes “exceptional circumstances” to justify her delay and to render her application admissible. The circumstances she characterizes as “exceptional” relate to her financial difficulties resulting from the termination of her employment with the Bank and the ensuing shortage of resources necessary to engage an attorney to handle her application. Application is inadmissible.

The Applicant’s employment was terminated on June 30, 1994 for unsatisfactory performance. She alleges non-observance by the Respondent of her terms of employment and contests the validity of this decision as well as a series of other measures and decisions leading up to it taken by the Respondent. These include: a) singling her out for probation and placing her on a closely monitored program; b) removing her from her Division on the basis of alleged less than satisfactory performance; c) failure to offer her a mutually agreed separation and inviting her instead to resign from the service of the Respondent.
 

The Applicant’s contention is that the Respondent abused its discretion by delaying until July 1, 1992 the implementation of its change from the so-called United Nations Index to the State Department Index for calculating his post adjustment allowance and that this delay entitles him to compensation. He relies, among other things, upon Principle 6 of the Principles of Staff Employment which provides that the “basic objectives of the Organization’s compensation policy shall be to….provide levels of compensation that are equitable internally” and that levels of staff compensation shall accordingly be “periodically review[ed] as appropriate.” The Tribunal must therefore determine whether the Respondent’s continuation in force of the United Nations Index system and the timing of its decision to implement the State Department Index was a breach of the Applicant’s contract of employment or terms of appointment. 

The Applicant challenges the Respondent's delay in promoting him from Research Analyst to Economist, as well as the grade level to which he was ultimately appointed on March 1, 1994.  He seeks a retroactive adjustment of his grade and title, up to a level 24 position, and compensation for lost salary and for other moral and professional damage. 

The question for decision by the Tribunal is whether the Applicant’s service was properly terminated by the Respondent for unsatisfactory performance in accordance with both the substantive requirements and the procedural guarantees required by the internal law of the Bank.

The Application arises out of complaints made against the Applicant, a level 24 staff member, by another staff member (“the complainant”). The complaints against the Applicant were lodged in conjunction with a complaint against the Bank regarding what the complainant saw as an improper failure on the part of the Bank to grant him a promotion.

The main issue in this case is whether the MAS agreement reached between the Applicant and the Bank and signed by the Applicant on January 16, 1992 is valid and binding, and whether the Bank has fulfilled its obligations thereunder. The Bank contends that the MAS agreement is valid and enforceable and that the Applicant should be held to its terms, whereas the Applicant contends that he signed the MAS agreement under duress and that in any case the Bank did not fulfill its obligation thereunder. The Applicant also accuses the Bank of abusing its managerial discretion by refusing, for a period of three years, to recognize the Applicant’s outstanding services to the Bank, particularly his input in improving and correcting certain aspects of the Main Complex Rehabilitation Program (MCRP). He also accuses the Bank of wrongfully denying him a fully justified professional growth promotion he was promised at the time of his appointment in ITF.
 

The Applicant has been accused by the Bank of having committed fraud by claiming overtime in excess of time actually worked. The disciplinary measure imposed has been termination of employment. The basic rule invoked by the Respondent is Principle of Staff Employment 3.1(c) to the extent that it imposes an obligation on staff members not to “engage in any activity that is incompatible with the proper discharge of their duties with the Organization”. Staff Rule 8.01 elaborates on this Principle by defining conduct for which disciplinary measures may be imposed, with particular reference to “unlawful acts (e.g., theft, fraud, felonious acts, use or possession of illegal drugs); and other misconduct (e.g., physical assault; harassment on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, or national origin; willful misrepresentation of facts intended to be relied upon)”.
 

The Applicant contests that decision and invites the Tribunal to quash it, order his reinstatement and also grant him other relief. The main grounds set out by the Applicant for seeking the quashing of the decision are: first, “there is no sufficient evidence that the Applicant intentionally defrauded the Bank”; second, as this case involves the imposition of a disciplinary sanction, the Respondent’s factual findings should be examined de novo; third, as the Applicant was not confronted with the evidence, there was infringement of his right to due process; and fourth, the sanction imposed on him infringed the principle of proportionality.
 

The Tribunal therefore concludes that the Applicant did not exhaust internal remedies within the Bank in a timely manner, and consequently his application to the Tribunal is inadmissible.
 

 The Applicant made the following pleas: (i) annulment and vacation in their entirety of the Respondent’s finding of misconduct and the disciplinary measures, including but not limited to: (a) denial of G-5 benefit; (b) written reprimand for failure to live up to the employment contract with his former employee; (c) written warning that any future infractions relating to G-5 or any other Bank privileges or benefits will lead to further disciplinary action, and possibly termination;
(d) warning that any further problem with any benefit or the like would lead to additional disciplinary action up to and including possible termination; and (e) denial of salary increase resulting from the 1992 Salary Review Exercise; (ii) payment of compensation equal to the salary increase resulting from the 1992 Salary Review; (iii) a finding that the Respondent abused its authority in reviewing and discussing the Applicant’s Performance and Planning Review (PPR) which had no relevance to the subject matter of the investigation and an order that the Respondent pay to the Applicant nominal damages for the unwarranted and unreasonable violation of his right of privacy; and (iv) removal from the Applicant’s personnel and staff records of all references to and documents relating to the disciplinary proceedings and measures; and (v) reimbursement of attorney’s fees in the sum of $4,285.00.
 

The Applicant maintains, that after her assignment to AS2CO in 1987 she was subjected to harassment, prejudice and unfair treatment by her supervisors, in particular on gender and ethnic grounds; that this hostile environment and the resulting stress caused her serious health problems; that the Respondent’s decision in 1990, when she was already ill, to place her on a trial assignment was “poor judgment” and constituted an abuse of power; that she has been given operational assignments for which she lacked the time to acquire the necessary exposure; that she should not have been evaluated as an Economist because, as the Respondent itself recognized, there was a “mismatch” between her skills and the needs of her division; that her evaluation, in particular in October 1991, was unfair, capricious and arbitrary, and constituted an abuse of discretion; and that the options offered to her on January 31, 1992, and in particular the offer of a demotion to a level 17 position, were manifestly unreasonable and as such an abuse of discretion.

The Applicant contends that the payment which the Tribunal ordered was intended to cover “salary” in the sense both of payment of his nominal net salary and of an additional amount to cover a period of leave entitlement through which the Applicant had worked and which would, in normal circumstances (i.e. when a staff member was not on “special leave”) have generated an additional pro rata payment. The Bank, on the other hand, contends that when the Tribunal used the word “salary” in its decision in the original proceedings it meant “salary” as that word is used in the Staff Rules and Regulations – a use which excludes payment made in lieu of leave. The latter are, in Bank parlance, called “benefits”.
 

The Tribunal finds that the Applicant is seeking to contest action allegedly taken against him in the period 1983 to 1990, but that he failed to invoke the procedure for administrative review until his appeal to the Appeals Committee on November 3, 1992. His application is, therefore, not admissible under the Statute of the Tribunal for failure to exhaust his internal remedies in time. The Applicant has presented no “exceptional circumstances” that would justify any relief from this requirement of the Statute.