Opinion of Mr Advocate General Van Gerven delivered on 18 April 1989

1 Original language: French.

2 i. e. the candidates' files.

3 In its judgment in Case 117/78 Orlandi v Commission [1979] ECR 1613 the Court had already applied the principles which it set out in full in Rinke: The notice of competition defines the conditions relating to qualifications or certificates by using the term course of secondary education and by adding that the Selection Board, in assessing the certificate, will take into account the differing educational systems in the Member States(paragraph 20). Although the Commission is entitled to draw up the conditions for entry to a competition in terms which are more rigorous than those used in this instance and, in particular, to require possession of a certificate giving access to university such a requirement must be apparent from the actual wording of the notice of competition since there are a great many different types of secondary education in the various Member States, some of which are not preparatory to education at university level and do not give automatic access to such education (paragraph 21).

4 The list here lakes no account of decisions granting admission to B competitions taken after the decision not to admit certain candidates taken by the Selection Board in competition No CJ 80/86 Such decisions cannot retroactively influence the ludgment of the Selection Board for an earlier competition

5 The notice for competition No CJ 90/85 to which Mrs Meyer had previously been admitted also required at least two years experience of the application of certain rules relating to financial or administrative management or documentation, this being a similar condition to the requirement of additional practical experience contained in the notice of competition No CJ 80/86.

6 At the hearing, counsel for the applicants claimed that the questionnaire had not been sent to all the candidates. However, he did not produce any evidence for that statement, which was contradicted by the representatives of the Court of Justice. He did not even indicate which of the candidates did not receive a questionnaire. Accordingly it does not seem to me that the candidates' claim that the questionnaires were distributed selectively can be entertained.

7 See judgment in Case 417/85 Maurissen v Court of Auditors [1987] ECR 551.