The World Bank Group's Administrative Tribunal, which is the institution's supreme court for staff grievances, is conservative, homogeneous, and needs reforming. That's the conclusion of the World Bank Group Staff Association (WBGSA) after a recent study. The Staff Association has begun a campaign to make fundamental changes: to make the seven tribunal members' terms longer, to have new members selected partly from a WBGSA list, and in general to reduce the influence of the bank's management on the tribunal.

The current WBGSA chair, Morallina George, says she found that "the number of decisions in favour of staff has been surprisingly low. Even in cases where staff have 'won,' they often haven't won much, considering the severity of their grievance." Since 1997, the tribunal has rendered 72 decisions, but decided only 32 in full or in part in favour of staff.

Over the last 20 years, the WBGSA has supported many cases in which one staff member has represented the plight of dozens of staff. The tribunal has seldom decided in the staff's favour in these instances. In cases where a staff member does win, the bank is under no compulsion to grant all other staff the rights won by the one.

Moreover, the tribunal's decisions in favour of staff never include mandatory reinstatement into the staff member's position, even in cases of flagrant abuse by the manager. Instead, the tribunal must, under its current rules, give management a choice between reinstatement and compensation, and the management overwhelmingly chooses compensation.

Based on the bank's own judicial reform principles, and the comments of the legal specialists the WBGSA consulted, here are the areas where the Administrative Tribunal's structure needs changing:

• Diversity - The tribunal today has gender, race, and national diversity, but all seven members are attorneys, four are or have been academics who teach law, and all come from a relatively small pool of specialists in international administrative proceedings.

  In 20 years, the body has never produced less than a unanimous decision. Thus, there is no minority opinion and no way to tell which member leans one way or the other. All seven tribunal members serve on other international judicial bodies, and in practice they often suggest their successors or co-members when a vacancy appears. Only one of the seven has worked as an actual judge under her own nation's law.

• Independence - If tribunal members want to stay on board, which most appear to do, they must basically remain acceptable to management. Their terms are short, and there's no limit to the number of times they may be reappointed. While the WBGSA does not believe there is intent to be less than upright either by management or by the present or past tribunals, the situation does invite a tribunal to trim its sails to remain in management's favour.

• Access to justice - Staff in general lack representative access to justice, because the Staff Association cannot come as a plaintiff to the tribunal, and class-action cases cannot be brought under the present statutes controlling the Tribunal. From management's point of view, the situation spells minimal interference in its broad decisions about staff.

• Prevention of Court Delay - Grievance cases that go to the tribunal often take more than two years in total (including the steps that precede the tribunal appeal). In such cases as redundancies, the Bank goes ahead with its decision, while the staff member must wait for an appeal, because there is no "stay" decision available in the Bank's formal grievance process.

Asking Governors for Changes

Given this analysis of the tribunal's problems, George will be pushing for these changes from the bank's board of governors:,

• Amendments to allow class action cases and appeals by the WBGSA, not just appeals by individual staff members.

• Amendments to increase the role of the WBGSA in appointing members of the tribunal. The amendments would require that new members be chosen partly from a list prepared by the WBGSA, and also would limit reappointments. One goal of changing this article is to remove the current requirement that tribunal members be "juriconsultants of recognized competence," and thus to allow for members who may be ombudspersons or specialists in ethics or labour relations.

• Amendments to allow, in non-unanimous decisions, identification of each tribunal member's vote, and written records of dissents by individual members.

• Amendments to allow the tribunal to order the bank to reinstate a staff member whose appeal is successful (in those cases where previously the tribunal had to offer management the choice of reinstating or compensating the staff member). Also, amendments giving the tribunal the right to stop the Bank from executing an immediate decision against a staff member (for example, a transfer or a redundancy ordered right after a disagreement with a manager). If staff members can establish beforehand that they are likely to win the case or would be irreparably harmed if the Bank immediately acted against them, they should not be "punished" before having their cases considered by the tribunal.

The advantages of legal counsel in defending staff rights

In February 1999, the WHO/HQ Staff Committee retained an attorney as outside legal counsel.

The outside legal counsel carries out a number of activities for the Staff Committee. He provides advice to members of the Staff Committee on matters affecting individual or collective staff interests, and works closely with the Staff Committee President. He visits WHO at least twice a month to meet confidentially with dues-paying Staff Association members to discuss any pending or potential legal or employment problems. He does not charge a fee for these initial consultations. In addition, he is available by appointment at any time to meet with dues-paying Staff Association members at the offices of his firm, again without any charge for the initial consultation. Should a staff member decide to retain his services for a work-related dispute, often his fees are covered by the collective legal insurance policy that covers all dues-paying members of the Staff Association. Finally, he prepares and presents, usually once a month, a lunchtime seminar series called "Know Your Rights", open to all staff members, followed by an informal question and answer session.

Specifically, since being retained, he has met with approximately two-three staff members every two weeks to discuss their legal concerns and issues surrounding their employment conditions, for a total of 130 staff member visits overall. From these initial counselling sessions, the majority of staff were able either to resolve the alleged problem on their own, or with the intervention of the Staff Committee or Ombudsman. Several staff were advised to take no action at the present time, but to gather information and documents in the event the complaints did not abate.

Approximately 50 per cent of the complaints heard by the outside legal counsel concerned, or originated as a result of, mobbing/psychological harassment of a staff member by a manager or supervisor (and less often by a colleague). Many of the affected staff members suffered significant physical manifestations of stress. Around 30 per cent of the other staff complaints concerned the non-renewal of contracts, or shortened contract terms, and the remaining comprised disciplinary matters, selection irregularities, transfer issues (denied or unwanted issues), denial of equal treatment (particularly the treatment of long-term/short-term staff) and denial of benefits.

Out of the 130 consultations, he has represented or advised seven individual staff members who have filed appeals with the Headquarters Board of Appeal. These seven do not include the four collective appeals that have been filed against the Administration concerning the December 1999 mutually-agreed separation exercise (two appeals), the treatment of the Brazzaville General Service staff in Harare, and the treatment of CMS staff who were placed on part-time status after the 1997 reduction-in-force, which together involve more than 50 staff members.

Since last Spring, he has organized seven "Know Your Rights" Seminars on the following topics:

• "Protect Thyself" - a review of what steps staff can take to insulate themselves from irregular or illegal actions;

• The legalities of contract renewal;

• An overview of the Headquarters Board of Appeal and the appeal procedure of the ILO Administrative Tribunal;

• Mobbing/Psychological Harassment - easily the best attended, which due to the limited space available during its initial presentation, was recently repeated for staff a second time;

• Contesting performance evaluations;

• Review of recent ILO Administrative Tribunal decisions; and

• Preparing a successful request for reclassification.

The outside legal counsel has also attended a number of staff assemblies to observe and contribute. He liaises closely with the President and members of the Staff Committee, and at their request, provides them with legal input on a number of issues which affect the staff at large and on which the Staff Committee must often negotiate with the Administration.