Writing style of submissions (947,-666)

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Keywords: Writing style of submissions
Total judgments found: 4

• Judgment 5118

  
  141st Session, 2026
  International Telecommunication Union
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant contests the decision to close her harassment complaint without carrying out an investigation following a preliminary review.

  Consideration 6

  Extract:

  In her pleadings on the receivability issue, the complainant chose to criticize the reference by ITU to numerous judgments of the Tribunal in a separate 14 pages analysis that she attached to her rejoinder as one of her annexes. While this did not in the end prejudice the complainant, this way of proceeding was still inappropriate and improper. In Judgment 4995, consideration 4, the Tribunal recalled that “[i]t should be borne in mind that this practice of referring to the arguments that appear in a document annexed to the complaint, rather than setting them out in the complaint itself as required by Article 6(1)(b) of the Rules of the Tribunal, is not admissible (see, for example, Judgments 4051, consideration 3, 3692, consideration 4, or 3434, consideration 5)”.

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 3434, 3692, 4051, 4995
  

  Keywords:

  submissions; writing style of submissions;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 5067

  
  140th Session, 2025
  European Patent Organisation
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant contests the EPO’s decision to reject his request to receive the dependants’ allowance in respect of his former wife and the household allowance in respect of his current partner.

  Considerations 7-8

  Extract:

  Thus, annexes 12, 19 and 25, or 26, are to be disregarded to the extent that they are relied upon as articulating the arguments the complainant would wish to advance in support of his case. This conclusion is not the manifestation of undue formalism. The procedures of the Tribunal are clearly structured in its Rules to ensure each party is aware of the pleas of the other parties. They require the articulation of the arguments in specified documents, namely in the brief (Article 6(1)(b)) and, by necessary implication, in the reply (Article 8), the rejoinder and the surrejoinder (Article 9). Moreover, there are now page limits on the length of the pleas (see Annex 1 to the Rules of the Tribunal). A party should not be burdened with the task of sifting through one or a number of annexes, potentially painstakingly and possibly of very lengthy documents, to identify what the opposing party’s arguments are. Nor should the page limits be circumvented by allowing the incorporation by reference of other documents, potentially lengthy, into the pleas. This is clearly reinforced by the case law referred to above, which draws on the Rules of the Tribunal and earlier case law.
  If, as should be the case, annexes 12, 19 and 25, or 26, are to be disregarded to the extent that they are relied upon as articulating the arguments of the complainant, there is nothing of substance left explaining why the complainant was, as a mixed question of fact and of law, entitled to the household and the dependants’ allowances and why the impugned decision was erroneous when dismissing the appeal from the original decision of the EPO to refuse to pay those benefits.

  Keywords:

  submissions; writing style of submissions;
  

  Judgment keywords

  Keywords:

  allowance; complaint dismissed; submissions; writing style of submissions;
  

  Considerations 5-6

  Extract:

  In Judgment 3920, consideration 5, the Tribunal had to consider the status of a document furnished as part of the complainant’s brief, namely a Statement of Appeal in her internal appeal to the Headquarters Board of Appeal (HBA), containing the pleas advanced in her appeal. The complainant sought to rely on the Statement. The Tribunal said:
  “The Tribunal has stated on a number of occasions, and recently with increasing frequency, that it is inappropriate to effectively incorporate by reference into the pleas before the Tribunal arguments, contentions and pleas found in other documents, often a document created for the purposes of internal review and appeal (see, for example, Judgments 3842, consideration 4, 3692, consideration 4, and 3434, consideration 5). In this matter, the Tribunal will only have regard to pleas in the complainant’s brief and rejoinder and will disregard any additional, supplementary or other pleas in the Statement of Appeal before the HBA.”
  There are numerous more recent cases to the same effect (see, for example, Judgments 4856, consideration 2, and 4015, consideration 6). A declaration by a party, as occurred in the present case, that a document containing pleas is to be treated as incorporated by reference into the brief is ineffective to achieve that result (see Judgment 4051, consideration 3).

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 3434, 3692, 3842, 3920, 4015, 4051, 4856
  

  Keywords:

  submissions; writing style of submissions;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4856

  
  138th Session, 2024
  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant impugns the decision to dismiss him for misconduct.

  Consideration 2

  Extract:

  In challenging the impugned decision, the complainant refers to statements, submissions and/or arguments and explanations he submitted in the internal appeal procedure, attempting to incorporate by reference his pleadings in that procedure into the proceedings before the Tribunal. The Tribunal will not take them into consideration in this judgment. The case law makes it clear that it is not acceptable to incorporate by reference into the pleadings before the Tribunal arguments, contentions and pleas found in documents created for the purposes of internal review and appeal (see Judgment 4014, consideration 7, and the judgments cited therein). The Tribunal has also stated, in Judgment 2264, consideration 3(e), also referred to in Judgment 3434, consideration 5, for example, that this manner of proceeding is contrary to Article 6(1)(b) of its Rules and makes it impossible for it (the Tribunal) and the other party to understand the complainant’s pleas with sufficient ease and clarity.

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 2264, 3434, 4014
  

  Keywords:

  procedure before the tribunal; submissions; writing style of submissions;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4480

  
  133rd Session, 2022
  International Labour Organization
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges the decision not to grant her a personal promotion in the 2015 exercise.

  Consideration 20

  Extract:

  [R]egarding the language used in the parties’ respective pleadings, in which both the complainant and her counsel, on the one hand, and the ILO and its counsel, on the other hand, criticise each other and invite the Tribunal to sanction each other’s conduct, the Tribunal finds that, although each party has asserted its interests and defended its views in a manner that is at times extremely robust, the pleadings are not such as to warrant the imposition of a sanction or an award of damages or even exemplary damages. The Tribunal considers that, although their unnecessarily argumentative tone is regrettable, the parties’ pleadings do not exceed the bounds of the freedom of expression that they must be accorded during legal proceedings.

  Keywords:

  writing style of submissions;