Judgment_paragraph 89 · CW v European Parliament (F-41/14)

89It is also important to bear in mind that just because it has been proved that a staff member has suffered psychological harassment, that does not mean that any decision adversely affecting the staff member and occurring in that context of harassment is automatically rendered unlawful. Indeed, by reason of its very nature, the fact that there is psychological harassment cannot be relied on, in principle, except to support a claim seeking the annulment of the appointing authority’s decision to refuse to grant a request for assistance made pursuant to Article 24 of the Staff Regulations, such as the one at issue in Case F‑124/13. Accordingly, it is only on a purely exceptional basis that a plea in law based on a supposed case of harassment can be relied on in the context of a review of the legality of an act adversely affecting a person, such as, in the present case, a staff report, and only if it appears — which is not the situation in the present case — that there is a link between the alleged harassment and the negative assessments contained in such a report (see, regarding psychological harassment invoked against a dismissal decision, judgments in Menghi v ENISA, F‑2/09, EU:F:2010:12, paragraph 69, and CF v AESA, F‑40/12, EU:F:2013:85, paragraph 79).