2. For purposes of this Statute:
a. the expression “administrative act” shall mean any individual or regulatory decision taken in the administration of the staff of the Fund;
b. the expression “regulatory decision” shall mean any rule concerning the terms and conditions of staff employment, including the General Administrative Orders and the Staff Retirement Plan, but excluding any resolutions adopted by the Board of Governors of the Fund;
c. the expression “member of the staff” shall mean:
(i) any person whose current or former letter of appointment, whether regular or fixed-term, provides that he shall be a member of the staff;
(ii) any current or former assistant to an Executive Director; and
(iii) any successor in interest to a deceased member of the staff as defined in (i) or (ii) above to the extent that he is entitled to assert a right of such staff member against the Fund;
d. the calculation of a period of time shall not include the day of the event from which the period runs, and shall include the next working day of the Fund when the last day of the period is not a working day;
e. the masculine pronoun shall include the feminine pronoun.
The Tribunal shall not have any powers beyond those conferred under this Statute. In deciding on an application, the Tribunal shall apply the internal law of the Fund, including generally recognized principles of international administrative law concerning judicial review of administrative acts. Nothing in this Statute shall limit or modify the powers of the organs of the Fund under the Articles of Agreement, including the lawful exercise of their discretionary authority in the taking of individual or regulatory decisions, such as those establishing or amending the terms and conditions of employment with the Fund. The Tribunal shall be bound by any interpretation of the Fund’s Articles of Agreement decided by the Executive Board, subject to review by the Board of Governors in accordance with Article XXIX of that Agreement.
Any issue concerning the competence of the Tribunal shall be settled by the Tribunal in accordance with this Statute.
1. When the Fund has established channels of administrative review for the settlement of disputes, an application may be filed with the Tribunal only after the applicant has exhausted all available channels of administrative review.
2. For purposes of this Statute, where the available channels of administrative review include a procedure established by the Fund for the consideration of complaints and grievances of individual staff members on matters involving the consistency of actions taken in their individual cases with the regulations governing personnel and their conditions of service, administrative review shall be deemed to have been exhausted when:
a. three months have elapsed since a recommendation on the matter has been made to the Managing Director and the applicant has not received a decision stating that the relief he requested would be granted;
b. a decision denying the relief requested has been notified to the applicant; or
c. two months have elapsed since a decision stating that the relief requested would be granted has been notified to the applicant, and the necessary measures have not actually been taken.
3. For purposes of this Statute, where the available channels of review do not include the procedure described in Section 2, a channel of administrative review shall be deemed to have been exhausted when:
a. three months have elapsed since the request for review was made and no decision stating that the relief requested would be granted has been notified to the applicant;
b. a decision denying the relief requested has been notified to the applicant; or
c. two months have elapsed since a decision stating that the relief requested would be granted has been notified to the applicant, and the necessary measures have not actually been taken.
4. For purposes of this Statute, all channels of administrative review shall be deemed to have been exhausted when the Managing Director and the applicant have agreed to submit the dispute directly to the Tribunal.
1. An application challenging the legality of an individual decision shall not be admissible if filed with the Tribunal more than three months after all available channels of administrative review have been exhausted, or, in the absence of such channels, after the notification of the decision.
2. An application challenging the legality of a regulatory decision shall not be admissible if filed with the Tribunal more than three months after the announcement or effective date of the decision, whichever is later; provided that the illegality of a regulatory decision may be asserted at any time in support of an admissible application challenging the legality of an individual decision taken pursuant to such regulatory decision.
3. In exceptional circumstances, the Tribunal may decide at any time, if it considers the delay justified, to waive the time limits prescribed under Sections 1 or 2 of this Article in order to receive an application that would otherwise be inadmissible.
4. The filing of an application shall not have the effect of suspending the implementation of the decision contested.
5. No application may be filed or maintained after the applicant and the Fund have reached an agreement on the settlement of the dispute giving rise to the application.
1. The Tribunal shall be composed of five members, including the President. As of January 1, 2010, the members shall be appointed as follows:
a. The President shall be appointed for four years by the Managing Director after consultation with the Staff Association and with the approval of the Executive Board.
b. Other members shall be appointed for four years by the Managing Director after appropriate consultation. As a transitional measure, two members shall be appointed for a term of only two years beginning on January 1, 2010.
c. The members shall have no prior or present employment relationship with the Fund, must be nationals of a member country of the Fund at the time of their appointments and must possess the qualifications required for appointment to high judicial office or be jurisconsults of recognized competence.
2. The President and the other members may be reappointed in accordance with the procedures for appointment set forth in Section 1 above, for a maximum of two additional terms; provided that service on the Tribunal prior to January 1, 2010 shall not be taken into account with respect to this limit. A member appointed to replace a member whose term of office has not expired shall hold office for the remainder of his predecessor’s term. Any such interim appointment shall not be taken into account when applying the term limitation.
3. Any member who has a conflict of interest in a case shall recuse himself.
4. The decisions of the Tribunal in a case shall be taken by a panel composed of the President and two other members designated by the President. If the President recuses himself or is otherwise unable to hear a case, the most senior of the members shall act as President for that case, provided that if two or more members are of equal seniority, the eldest shall act as President.
5. The Managing Director shall terminate the appointment of a member who, in the unanimous opinion of the other members, is unsuited for further service.
The members of the Tribunal shall be completely independent in the exercise of their duties; they shall not receive any instructions or be subject to any constraint. In the performance of their functions, they shall be considered as officers of the Fund for purposes of the Articles of Agreement of the Fund. The members of the Tribunal shall not be eligible for staff employment with the Fund following the end of their service with the Tribunal.
1. The Managing Director shall make the administrative arrangements necessary for the functioning of the Tribunal.
2. The Managing Director shall designate personnel to serve as a Secretariat to the Tribunal. Such personnel, in the discharge of duties hereunder, shall be under the authority of the President. They shall not, at any time, disclose confidential information received in the performance of their duties.
3. The expenses of the Tribunal shall be borne by the Fund.
1. The Tribunal may require the production of documents held by the Fund, except that the Managing Director may withhold evidence if he determines that the introduction of such evidence might hinder the operation of the Fund because of the secret or confidential nature of the document. Such a determination shall be binding on the Tribunal, provided that the applicant’s allegations concerning the contents of any document so withheld shall be deemed to have been demonstrated in the absence of probative evidence to the contrary. The Tribunal may examine witnesses and experts, subject to the same qualification.
2. Subject to the provisions of this Statute, the members of the Tribunal shall, by majority vote, establish the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure. The Rules of Procedure shall include provisions concerning:
a. presentation of applications and the procedure to be followed in respect to them;
b. intervention by persons to whom the Tribunal is open under Section 1 of Article II, whose rights may be affected by the judgment;
c. presentation of testimony and other evidence;
d. summary dismissal of applications without disposition on the merits; and
e. other matters relating to the functioning of the Tribunal.
3. Each party may be assisted in the proceedings by counsel of his choice, other than members of the Fund’s Legal Department, and shall bear the cost thereof, subject to the provisions of Article XIV, Section 4 and Article XV.
The Tribunal shall ordinarily hold its sessions at the Fund's headquarters. The Tribunal may decide to hold a session at another location or by electronic means, taking into account the need for fairness and efficiency in the conduct of proceedings. The Tribunal shall fix the dates of its sessions in accordance with its Rules of Procedure.
The Tribunal shall decide in each case whether oral proceedings are warranted. Oral proceedings shall be open to all interested persons, unless the Tribunal decides that exceptional circumstances require that they be held in private.
1. All decisions of the Tribunal shall be by majority vote.
2. Judgments shall be final, subject to Article XVI and Article XVII, and without appeal.
3. Each judgment shall be in writing and shall state the reasons on which it is based.
4. The deliberations of the Tribunal shall be confidential.
1. If the Tribunal concludes that an application challenging the legality of an individual decision is well-founded, it shall prescribe the rescission of such decision and all other measures, whether involving the payment of money or otherwise, required to correct the effects of that decision.
2. When prescribing measures under Section 1 other than the payment of money, the Tribunal shall fix an amount of compensation to be paid to the applicant should the Managing Director, within one month of the notification of the judgment, decide, in the interest of the Fund, that such measures shall not be implemented. The amount of such compensation shall not exceed the equivalent of three hundred percent (300%) of the current or, as the case may be, last annual salary of such person from the Fund. The Tribunal may, however, in exceptional cases, when it considers it justified, order the payment of a higher compensation; a statement of the specific reasons for such an order shall be made.
3. If the Tribunal concludes that an application challenging the legality of a regulatory decision is well-founded, it shall annul such decision. Any individual decision adversely affecting a staff member taken before or after the annulment and on the basis of such regulatory decision shall be null and void.
4. If the Tribunal concludes that an application is well-founded in whole or in part, it may order that the reasonable costs incurred by the applicant in the case, including the cost of applicant’s counsel, be totally or partially borne by the Fund, taking into account the nature and complexity of the case, the nature and quality of the work performed, and the amount of the fees in relation to prevailing rates.
5. When a procedure prescribed in the rules of the Fund for the taking of a decision has not been observed, the Tribunal may, at the request of the Managing Director, adjourn the proceedings for institution of the required procedure or for adoption of appropriate corrective measures, for which the Tribunal shall establish a time certain.
1. The Tribunal may order that reasonable compensation be made by the applicant to the Fund for all or part of the cost of defending the case, if it finds that:
a. the application was manifestly without foundation either in fact or under existing law, unless the applicant demonstrates that the application was based on a good faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing law; or
b. the applicant intended to delay the resolution of the case or to harass the Fund or any of its officers or employees.
2. The amount awarded by the Tribunal shall be collected by way of deductions from payments owed by the Fund to the applicant or otherwise, as determined by the Managing Director, who may, in particular cases, waive the claim of the Fund against the applicant.
A party to a case in which a judgment has been delivered may, in the event of the discovery of a fact which by its nature might have had a decisive influence on the judgment of the Tribunal, and which at the time the judgment was delivered was unknown both to the Tribunal and to that party, request the Tribunal, within a period of six months after that party acquired knowledge of such fact, to revise the judgment.
The Tribunal may interpret or correct any judgment whose terms appear obscure or incomplete, or which contains a typographical or arithmetical error.
1. The original of each judgment shall be filed in the archives of the Fund. A copy of the judgment, attested to by the President, shall be delivered to each of the parties concerned.
2. A copy shall also be made available by the Secretariat on request to any interested person, provided that the President may decide that the identities or any other means of identification of the applicant or other persons mentioned in the judgment shall be deleted from such copies.
This Statute may be amended only by the Board of Governors of the Fund.
1. The Tribunal shall not be competent to pass judgment upon any application challenging the legality or asserting the illegality of an administrative act taken before October 15, 1992, even if the channels of administrative review concerning that act have been exhausted only after that date.
2. In the case of decisions taken between October 15, 1992 and the establishment of the Tribunal, the application shall be admissible only if it is filed within three months after the establishment of the Tribunal. For purposes of this provision, the Tribunal shall be deemed to be established when the staff has been notified by the Managing Director that all the members of the Tribunal have been appointed.
The competence of the Tribunal may be extended to any international organization upon the terms established by a special agreement to be made with each such organization by the Fund. Each such special agreement shall provide that the organization concerned shall be bound by the judgments of the Tribunal and be responsible for the payment of any compensation awarded by the Tribunal in respect of a staff member of that organization and shall include, inter alia, provisions concerning the organization’s participation in the administrative arrangements for the functioning of the Tribunal and concerning its sharing the expenses of the Tribunal.
