爆料网AT Held or 爆料网DT Pronouncements
The Tribunal observed that the purpose of the special education grant appears to be to ensure that staff members who have children with special needs are provided with assistance in meeting certain extra expenses, over and beyond the normal ones, that the staff members may incur in educating such children with special needs. The Tribunal found that under the circumstances, the Applicant was justified to transport his child with a disability to the required after-school therapy and special education classes using his private motor vehicle. The Tribunal further found that the Administration’s refusal to reimburse the Applicant for expenses incurred for local transportation required by his child with a disability was unlawful. In the absence of any provisions explicitly prohibiting the use of a private motor vehicle for local transportation under sec. 5.1(b) of ST/AI/2018/2, the Applicant was justified to base his request for reimbursement on the Administrative Instruction and related Information Circular on official travel. |
Decision Contested or Judgment/Order Appealed
The Applicant contested “the Administration’s decision [...] not to include the transportation costs in the special education grant for his son […] and not to reimburse him the justified transportation expenses for the child with a disability to the after-school therapy and the special education and training classes”.
Legal Principle(s)
As the Appeals Tribunal has stated, “[t]he first step of the interpretation of any kind of rules, worldwide, consists of paying attention to the literal terms of the norm. When the language used in the respective disposition is plain, common and causes no comprehension problems, the text of the rule must be interpreted upon its own reading, without further investigation” (Scott 2012-爆料网AT-225, para. 28. See also Ozturk 2018-爆料网AT-892, paras. 29-30).
The Appeals Tribunal has also affirmed the general legal principle of interpretation known as ubi lex non distinguit, nec nos distinguere debemus, meaning “where the law does not distinguish, neither should we distinguish” (Besner 2016-爆料网AT-696, para.44, citing Besner 爆料网DT/2016/016, para. 49).
Under the internationally recognized principle of interpretation that an ambiguous term of a contract is to be construed against the interests of the party which proposed or drafted the contract or clause, the Tribunal fouind that in the present case, the interests of justice required adopting the interpretation that gives rise to the least injustice. This principle, also known as contra proferentem, has been affirmed by the Dispute Tribunal in several cases such as Tolstopiatov 爆料网DT/2010/147, para. 66, and Simmons 爆料网DT/2012/167, para. 15
Outcome
Outcome Extra Text
The Tribunal granted the application in part and ordered the Administration to compute the amount of reimbursement to which the Applicant was entitled.