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The UNAT noted that the staff member had telecommuted from his home country for the entire academic year. The UNAT found that payment of the educational grant required the physical presence of the staff member at their official duty station, with such payment to be suspended or adjusted for the period that they were telecommuting from outside the official duty station.

The UNAT held that it was not open to the staff member to rely on a defence that the Administration be estopped from relying on the applicable provisions in its interpretation of the circumstances under which the education...

The Tribunal concluded that the promulgation of ST/AI/2018/Rev.1/Amend.1, which restrictively redefined enrolment-related fees, did not conform to General Assembly resolution 70/244. As such, its promulgation was an abuse of the Administration’s discretion and its application in reviewing the Applicant’s education grant for her son was unlawful.

Accordingly, the Tribunal held that the Applicant was correct in that the fees that she claimed were admissible as tuition, in addition to being enrolment-related. Thus, the decision to deny reimbursement for those fees was unlawful.

The Tribunal...

The UNAT found that the relief sought in the application concerned an issue not previously raised before the UNDT or the UNAT, being the recovery of an amount already paid as an admissible expense on a sliding scale.

The UNAT held that there was nothing in the meaning or scope of the prior Judgment that was unclear or ambiguous, the terms of the order were clear. The UNAT noted there was no need to interpret the prior Judgment to clarify its meaning, nor were there reasonable doubts about what constituted the UNAT’s decision or the reasons for it.

The UNAT was of the view that there was also...

The issue in this case is whether EG and SEG consist of two independent benefits that can be granted in combination.

Pursuant to sec. 6.1(a) of ST/AI/2018/2/Amend.1, the overall maximum amount of SEG shall be equal to the upper limit of the top bracket of the global sliding scale applicable to the education grant scheme. The law does not allow an interpretation where EG and SEG can be “stacked”. 

Indeed, the difference between EG and SEG is in the percentages of reimbursement that eligible staff members are entitled to receive. This difference in reimbursement percentage addresses the...

The Tribunal found that it was not unreasonable nor unlawful to require the Applicant to work from the office for two days per week. The Administration, therefore, properly exercised its discretion in declining the Applicant’s request to work from home for the entire work week. The Tribunal took note that the Applicant had been able to work remotely on a full-time basis from March 2020 to December 2022 and that there was an operational need for the Applicant to return to work. The Director reasonably, weighed this operational fact against allowing the Applicant to telecommute for the entire...

The compulsory nature of education at any level is not one of the eligibility requirements for the education grant. The determining factor is the binding nature of the start of formal primary education. Paragraph 4.2(d) provides for an exception only if an earlier start of formal primary education is required by law. In other words, it creates an exception to the five-year age-based definition of “primary level” set forth in para 4.2(c). The legal minimum level of education for education grant eligibility purposes remains the primary level.
Furthermore, the Hungarian Act on National Education...

The Applicant’s request for management evaluation on 15 November 2021 against the ineligibility to the education grant for French nationals residing in neighbouring France and serving in Geneva was time- barred. As such, this aspect of the application is not receivable ratione materiae. Nevertheless, considering the circumstances of the case, the 22 September 2021 Administration’s denial of the Applicant’s 2020/2021 education grant claim constitutes a new administrative decision. As such, the 60-day deadline for requesting management evaluation of this decision started to run from 22 September...

UNAT held that since the Appellant’s son has a disability, he was entitled to receive benefits only under the special education grant scheme ST/AI/2018/2 (Special education grant and related benefit for children with a disability) and not under the regular education grant scheme ST/AI/2018/1/Rev.1 (Education grant and related benefits).  UNAT concluded that since the Appellant’s son was not boarding during the academic year of 2019-2020 and continued to reside at the parental home, the Appellant was not eligible for any boarding allowance under ST/AI/2018/2.

Even if ST/AI/2018/1/Rev.1 was...

The UNAT considered an appeal by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The UNAT held that its task was to review whether any or all the fees, for which Mr. Awad requested reimbursement, constituted admissible expenses, either as “enrolment-related fees” or “tuition”. The wording of Section 3.1(a) and (b) of ST/AI/2018/1/Rev.1, their systematic context with other provisions of ST/AI/2018/1/Rev.1, the goals of the General Assembly and UNAT’s recent jurisprudence should be taken into account. The UNAT found that there was no “plain meaning of enrollment”.  While the word “enrolment”, in...

UNAT first explained that under the new reimbursement regime, an expense would be recoverable if: (i) it’s for tuition; (ii) it is paid directly to the school; and (iii) it is certified by the school as being necessary for attendance. UNAT rejected the staff member’s claim that because another UN entity would apply a rule more favorably to his case, that entity’s interpretation should trump over the one given by the organization where he actually works. Second, UNAT disagreed with the Administration’s approach that if an item in a category of fees was inadmissible, then the Administration...