Bonum Certa Men Certa

Cautionary Tale: ILO Administrative Tribunal Cases (Appeals) 'Intercepted' Under António Campinos

UIMP event and FTI Consulting



Summary: The ILO Administrative Tribunal (ILO-AT) is advertised by the EPO's management as access to justice, but it's still being undermined quite severely to the detriment of aggrieved staff

THE NEW President of the EPO, António Campinos, is still not complying with ILO-AT judgments. It's problematic for a lot of reasons and sources of ours already give up on him (or concede hope that he will fix things that matter). Actions are needed; it has already been half a month.



Earlier this year we saw links to some tweets of somebody called Anette Koch, who came out in Twitter, revealing grievances she had experienced at the EPO. Just before the weekend we saw more links (or retweets) from EPO-connected accounts to documents that we decided to publish yesterday. These documents, or rather a two-page letter (E-mail/s), confirmed our suspicions that when it comes to justice Campinos and Battistelli might be indistinguishable.

"These documents, or rather a two-page letter (E-mail/s), confirmed our suspicions that when it comes to justice Campinos and Battistelli might be indistinguishable."So we attempted to contact the person in question. It wasn't hard because the E-mail appeared in the above documents. We now have a better understanding of what's going on and would like to share what the EPO under Campinos is doing.

"The EPO attempts to jeopardize three of my cases with the Tribunal by arbitrarily re-starting them in internal appeal and inviting me for comments," Koch responded to my E-mail, "[so] of course I will comment to the Tribunal only. Please note that the Tribunal did not refer them back to the EPO, i.e. the EPO acts on its own initiative."

Remittance before judgments can even be reached? That's odd. How many more people might this be done to? It wouldn't be so shocking if the EPO, under instructions from high-level management (maybe Campinos himself or HR itself), is just mass-mailing this to a lot of complainants.

"I am sick and tired of this type of bullying," Koch told me, "I have pain in my stomach and in my right wrist currently, so I have to be short."

"Remittance before judgments can even be reached?"It doesn't look as though the EPO changes in any concrete way under Campinos. I gave him a chance, I really did; I wanted to think that things were going to improve at least in the sense that the social climate might change. But they're still panicking. Staff still suffers. SUEPO representatives, victims of union-busting efforts, are still in limbo.

It's worth noting that the document (or documents, a few E-mails) was produced well after Campinos had taken over and, if so and considering the circumstances, who is most culpable (or to blame) here? The legal department, HR, or someone else?

Campinos has been President since the first of July. The documents (E-mails) are dated 9th of July and 10th of July, respectively. While the decision mentioned could still have been taken by Mr. Battistelli, the new President should normally have been informed. He is welcome to stop this.

"While the decision mentioned could still have been taken by Mr Battistelli, the new President should normally have been informed. He is welcome to stop this."The crucial legal points are: (i) a lower judicial instance cannot re-start a case under appeal on its own initiative (notwithstanding the non-judicial character of the EPO which is a party to these cases), (ii) in the E-mails the IAC clearly threatens to adopt the current procedural rules (it points to them), i.e. all its members can be nominated by the President only or determined by lots. To adopt the current rules contravenes the principle of non-retroactivity, obliging the EPO to follow the Service Regulations at the time of filing internal appeals at which part of IAC members were still to be nominated by the CSC (where's the IAC's "independence" otherwise?).

"The effect of such E-mails on my health is significant," Koch told me, "i.e. pain in my stomach, neck, wrist and elbow."

It's bad enough that the EPO's poor facilities have already caused many disabilities at the EPO (we wrote about it before). It's even worse that those people get 'discarded' once the EPO 'breaks' them and these people are then denied access to justice. What kind of employer is this? Persistent rumours suggest that the EPO isn't even hiring anymore; it only pretends to, i.e. it's wasting people's time and making them nervous without any prospects of a job.

"This further reaffirms SUEPO's allegation (from a couple of weeks back) that ILO-AT "remains very much an employer’s court” (not employees’) because it's often doing whatever EPO management wants it to do."Remarking on the above, Koch replied to our query by asserting that "the main aim of all this is of course to prevent treatment of my cases in substance by the Tribunal, by having them referred back to the IAC, i.e by delay. This would be another catastrophe, and I have to do everything I still can to prevent this [...] it's about the EPO's and partly the ILOAT's way of proceeding, not about me in person [...] Yet it is new (in my cases) and utterly absurd that the IAC simply restarts cases in internal appeal on its own motion, even without the Tribunal referring them back to the IAC (at least SUEPO did not report such cases yet)."

This further reaffirms SUEPO's allegation (from a couple of weeks back) that ILO-AT "remains very much an employer’s court” (not employees’) because it's often doing whatever EPO management wants it to do. It doesn't really feel impartial and decisions get delayed at the request of the EPO.

Recent Techrights' Posts

GNU/Linux Rises to All-Time High in Chile
sharp rise for GNU/Linux in Chile
Why We Still Love Gemini Protocol
Gemini Protocol may seem like something "old" (it's actually very new) and something "nobody would use", but many people use it
This is the Man Who's Attacking Linus Torvalds et al in "a Disease" (Social Control Media)
One thing that Richard M. Stallman and Torvalds can agree on is that Social Control Media should be avoided
 
Links 09/02/2025: Russian Energy Cut Off, LLM Pushers Show Signs of Desperation
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Does Not Have Media Companies and Lobbyists on His Side, But His Message Spreads Regardless
The message of RMS is spreading in spite of all the smears
Links 09/02/2025: Hottest January on Record, Panama Blackmailed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/02/2025: "Died as a Mineral" and Game Interface for a Non-Game
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 08, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 08, 2025
Links 08/02/2025: UK Back Doors and Religious Fundamentalists in Positions of Higher Power
Links for the day
Today's IBM (Red Hat) Isn't the Company That Fought a Microsoft-Sponsored SCO in Court
IBM is nowadays in a state of rapid disintegration
When You Simply Rebrand Almost Everything as "Hey Hi" ("AI"), "Hey Hi Workloads", "Hey Hi Datacentres" and Whatnot
The "growth" has been a growing lie for years if not decades
Microsoft Windows Falls to 12% in Myanmar
Remember that Microsoft is virtually 0% in mobile
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: "Thought Leaders" and Returns to Gemini Protocol
Links for the day
Links 08/02/2025: MElon Coup, Mass Layoffs at Facebook, and PlayStation Network Down
Links for the day
Unlike GAFAM, Free Software Serves You, It Does Not Serve Governments and MElons (Overlapping Forces)
Tired of oligarchy controlling your life through gadgets and "apps"?
On Wars Against Founders
We need to insist that founders remain
When It Comes to Social Control Media, Linus Torvalds is Channeling Techrights
GAFAM workers know exactly who to aim at
New EPO Paper: Promoting (Rewarding) People Who Grant Many Illegal European Patents to Make More Money (at Europeans' Expense) While Patent Courts in the EU Are Themselves Illegal
now the coup is sort of complete and even the "courts" are part of the corruption
Slopwatch: Carnival of LLM Slop and FUD Spewed by Bots, Pasted in by MaKenna Hensley and Day
Welcome to the Web in 2025. Articles about "Linux", "Security", and the Web (e.g. "Firefox") are fake.
Links 08/02/2025: News Corp Admits Traffic Declines, Wildlife Trafficking Tackled
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: Lamp and Notions
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 07, 2025
Links 07/02/2025: Amazon’s Stock Collapses and US Government Being Dismantled (Still)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/02/2025: Mid-level Details and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 07/02/2025: US 'Demolition Crew', e-ID Loopholes, and Sanctions
Links for the day
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constrains Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
Social Control Media is Narcissism
Nowadays there's a lot more literature and even press coverage explaining the harms of Social Control Media
Debian Left Twitter (MElon "X"), We Think the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Should Do the Same
What would the FSF really lose if it stopped posting there?
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Share Doubling in China Over the Past Year
It'll be interesting to see what data in the coming months shows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 06, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 06, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Confirms Next Week's Talk in Europe
He gave at least 2 talks in Europe last month
Nationalism As A Service (NaaS) by Microsoft Azure, Gutting the US Government for Profit
Will Microsoft be receiving bailouts as a reward for all this?
Rumours of IBM Layoffs Apparently Confirmed Yesterday, IBM Canada Consulting Impacted (as Rumoured)
when IBM has layoffs we must also read it as Red Hat layoffs