Brussels on trial over staff treatment

As reported in the Financial Times A case that seems like the political use and abuse of psychiatry

A civil servant branded as mentally unstable by the European Commission was subjected to harassment and blackmail a court heard on Wednesday, in a trial that questions the way the European Union executive rids itself of troublesome staff.

José Sequeira was marched from his office two years ago after the Commission’s medical service said he was mentally unfit to work. His lawyers claim he was singled out for raising allegations of corruption in the Jacques Santer-led Commission during the late 1990s.

Neither he nor his doctors have seen the diagnosis and three eminent psychiatrists have given him a clean bill of health.

“How can one contest a decision without access to the medical file?” asked Paul Mahoney, presiding judge at the European civil service tribunal in Luxembourg, where the hearing was held.

His fellow judges on a three-person panel also questioned whether a decision on June 18 2004 to put Mr Sequeira on sick leave within 72 hours was taken by the correct person. It was “not a decision but a communication”, the Commission said in its defence. It was rubberstamped by higher authorities on June 28. “One could perhaps call it ‘inexistent’ then”, mused Stéfano Gervasoni, echoing Mr Sequeira’s application to have it annulled.

Mr Sequeira also wants his job as an administrator in the development directorate back and up to €2m ($2.6m, £1.4m) in damages and costs from his two-year fight to clear his name.

Commission staff have jobs for life but an average of 200 are placed on long-term sick leave every year, half with mental health problems. That is almost 1 per cent of its 22,000 workforce and most never return to work. A 2003 study found that the cost across all European institutions of the invalidity policy is €74m a year.

The Commission is revamping its occupational health policy.

Mr Sequeira, who joined the Commission in 1988, first encountered problems in February 2001 when Horst Reichenbach, head of the administration department, accused him of circulating a “defamatory dossier” about colleagues. He placed a junior official, Mercedes de Sola, in charge of disciplinary proceedings. She asked him to attend a medical appointment.

“Where is the dossier?” asked Olivier Martins, Mr Sequeira’s barrister. “It was just an excuse.”

Mr Sequeira, a Portuguese national, refused to co-operate with the inquiry and was given an ultimatum in May 2004 by the Commission medical service. Dr Serve Dolmans told him that unless he visited a psychiatrist chosen by the Commission he would be sent on sick leave.

After a 45 minute consultation he was apparently judged unfit to work. Serge Bornstein, an eminent French psychiatrist, by contrast found no evidence of mental illness.

Céline Falmagne, for the Commission, said it was an “exceptional case” but due procedure had been followed. “It was a medical case handled by medical professionals,” she told the court.

The judges will deliver a verdict in the next few months.