1. Scope of the Memorandum

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1 TRIBAD 64/17 September 1 st, 2017 Ambassador Eliza Ruiz Díaz Permanent Representative of Paraguay before the Organization of American States President of the Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs of the Permanent Council Washington, DC Ref: Memorandum SAF/159/17 and reporting circuit according to TRIBAD organic dependence Madam Ambassador, The OAS Administrative Tribunal (TRIBAD) is pleased to address you in regards to Memorandum SAF /159/17 of the Secretariat of Administration and Finance (SAF) received on August 18, 2017, in order to submit the following comments to your consideration. 1. Scope of the Memorandum The Memorandum requests the Secretaries and Directors of the different areas of the Organization to send to the Department of Financial Services (DFS), before September 1, 2017, a list of urgent needs to cover operating costs until the end of the year (items 2 to 9). It asks also to detail each request for expenditure within the originally approved budget, and considering the balances currently available. It is added that all applications will be analyzed and prioritized in order to determine how the limited funds available will be allocated which will be the last of the year. It adds that, if an area does not submit its application before the deadline, it will not be considered and funds will not be allocated to it for the rest of the year. This measure, according to the memorandum, responds to the 13% reduction of the budget for 2017 compared to that approved in 2016, and the continuing need to maintain an austerity environment throughout the General Secretariat until the end of the year. This makes it necessary to adjust budget execution in the last quarter of 2017, with some programs likely to reduce or suspend operations due to the inability of the Regular Fund to cover certain daily expenses.

2 2. Measures of austerity adopted by the OAS Administrative Tribunal prior to Memo SAF 159/17 The Administrative Tribunal is aware of the budgetary situation of the Organization this year and, in this regard, has adopted a series of measures to accompany the austerity situation of the Organization, such as: i. To limit the request for reinforcements to the OAS General Secretariat for the current year, up to a maximum of $49,800, which, together with the $36,700 approved by the General Assembly for 2017, amounts to $86,500; which is the maximum amount that the Tribunal plans to execute throughout the year including the substantiation of a case (or even less according to the needs of expenditure). pursuing this way a saving of 13.5% over the approximate amount that had been executed in the last 3 years ($ 100,000) taking into account the assigned reinforcements 1. From this $86,500, still remain $ 26,800 pending to be credited that have been requested to the GS/OAS in notes TRIBAD 52/17 and TRIBAD 58/17 of July 20 and August 8, 2017 respectively. ii. iii. To decline the invitation made by the Secretary General of the Organization to the Administrative Tribunal to participate in the forty-seventh regular session of the General Assembly in Cancun, Mexico, in June This meant a saving of approximately $ 3,000 in our budget. To decline the invitation of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Administrative Tribunal to attend the First High Level Seminar on International Administrative Tribunals co-organized with the European Public Law Organization (EPLO), to be held on 14 and 15 September 2017 in Attica, Greece. Judge Homero Bibiloni, in a previous meeting held with various representatives of International Administrative Tribunals at the ILO headquarters in May of this year, proposed several of the topics to be considered at that meeting, as well as a circuit between Judges and Secretaries to share the information. As a measure to accompany the austerity situation of the Organization, we have resolved not to attend this event despite being perfectly justified in the Tribunal's institutional strengthening activities, motivated by exchange of experiences between sister organizations to modernize processes or resolve regulatory gaps. This will represent a savings in our budget of approximately $ 4,500. The previous measures total $ 21,000 representing a saving of 21% taking into account the average budget execution of the last 3 years Other measures that have been implemented for several years, also in line with the austerity situation of the Organization, are the following: iv. To modify our own Rules of Procedure in 2014 to set a limit on the length of documents that will be presented by the parties in proceedings and thereby reduce enormous costs for translations. v. To hire translation services, whenever possible, with external professionals at cheaper rates than those offered internally. 1 See in this regard Note TRIBAD 40/17 sent by this Presidency to the Secretary General on May 23, 2017: 2

3 vi. vii. viii. ix. To conduct videoconferences to advance the discussion of topics on the agenda and reduce the days of on-site sessions in Washington with the savings that this entails. To discontinue the practice existing until 2007 of organizing a meeting in Washington dedicated exclusively to witnesses hearings. The Judges have worked hard to be able to cover in the same sessions the witness interviews, oral debate between the parties and the case deliberation. Reduce shipments of documentation via courier. Meet in other OAS member states (Argentina, Panama, Peru) when it has been shown that it is cheaper than meeting in Washington D.C. The above measures need to be mentioned, as it is necessary to put emphasis that the Administrative Tribunal is not only aware of the difficult budgetary situation that the Organization is undergoing, but also acts in accordance with it. 3. Unforeseen expenditures in 2017 budget In addition to the austerity measures implemented by TRIBAD to provide significant savings, it should be noted that of the funds allocated to us in 2017, a total of $ 12,000 was distributed to cover two visits of the judges of this body to OAS headquarters to deal with situations that we had not foreseen, related to the General Secretariat s management: i. The first visit was by the Vice-President of the Administrative Tribunal, Judge Michel Bastarache, and me. It took place in March 2017 to intervene in the competitive process for the selection of the Secretary of this body. This is because Judges were completely excluded in all phases of the process prior to designation, to the detriment of our right to participate as sole and legitimate technical area, without prejudice to other deficiencies identified in the process. These unforeseen circumstances in the formulation of the budget 2017 that are outside the Tribunal, led to the need to reevaluate the candidates and repeat interviews, and this activity of essential validation and remediation took from our budget the amount of $ 9,827.95, counting the Conferences services hired for meetings and the travel costs of Judges. ii. The second visit to the headquarters took place in June 2017 and its purpose was to present, before the political bodies of the Organization, the background information of the unanimous decision adopted of suspending our jurisdictional functions as of June 1 for the proper knowledge of the General Assembly to which this Tribunal must report. As indicated in our Resolution 390 the suspension of the judicial functions of this body is motivated by budgetary and administrative conditions considered unacceptable by the Judges who comprise it. Having been notified on May 2017 that we should not assume new reinforcements until the end of the year 2 -with an availability of $612 in the account-, a circumstance that we sent to the attention of the General Secretariat. This visit had a cost to Tribunal of $ 2, Idem 3

4 4. Institutional place of the Administrative Tribunal in the Organization The Administrative Tribunal of the OAS is a subordinate body to the General Assembly of the Organization, as stated in Article I of its Statute. It is not an appendix of the General Secretariat that also acts as one of the parties that litigates within our jurisdictional scope. Consequently, it is not the responsibility of this body to transmit to the Department of Financial Services of the General Secretariat a list of our needs for expenditures, since such a list should be sent to the Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs (CAAP) of the Permanent Council. And this has already been done through Note TRIBAD 44/17 of June 14, Annex 11 of said note already contains a projection of expenses of the Administrative Tribunal until December 2017, estimating what is necessary for processing a case that eventually be presented. 5. The SG/OAS should not assume Judge and party roles in relation to the processes that concern TRIBAD The Chief of Staff of the Secretary General has informed the Tribunal through Note OSG/ 274/2017 of July 31, 2017 that "in the event of new cases being submitted, TRIBAD will have the necessary resources". The Tribunal does not share this logic because it violates our independence, which we must defend even in the context of the most severe budget crises. Justice administration should not be subject to any conditioning by who is a party in our trials and who also has the legal obligation, set by the General Assembly, to provide TRIBAD with the resources necessary for its operation (Article V of its Statute). Such provision should not be made in a fragmentary manner, or in other words, at such times as the General Secretariat deems appropriate and to the extent that the Department of Financial Services considers our needs as priority. This methodology is unfounded and contravenes the legal certainty and guarantees that go together with the due process, since we cannot admit a complaint and later paralyze its process to the detriment of the parties while the authorization of the funds is granted,. Such authorization, it should be emphasized, is at the head of one of the parties that litigates before us, and is also subject to his assessment, reason why the Chief of Staff of the Secretary General does not provide any certainty that we can count on the funds we need to function. 6. Respectful conclusion Based on the above considerations, the OAS Administrative Tribunal will not send the information requested by the SAF to the Department of Financial Services because it is not appropriate for a SG/OAS unit to assign the level of importance to our expenditure needs. 7. Formalization of an independent reporting channel The Administrative Tribunal considers that the CAAP must decide on the authorization of accreditations to the Administrative Tribunal as an autonomous and independent body, accordingly, we submit to your attention our last communications TRIBAD 52/17 of July 20, 2017 and TRIBAD 58/17 of August 8, 2017, which reiterate the request of $ 26,800 to lift the suspension and continue our functions. This will allow us to provide legal certainty and due process guarantees to the parties of any controversy that is presented before us, and also to prevent any major expenses to the Organization, like external litigation costs. 4

5 For reasons of simple coherence, it is reaffirmed that, if a complaint is not received in the remaining time of 2017, all funds that are being specifically projected for processing a case will return to their source of origin at the end of the year for its redistribution in the 2018 budget as established by Member States, since this Tribunal does not expect to incur superfluous or unnecessary expenditures. Lastly, we would appreciate your assistance to distribute a copy of this letter to each one of the delegations of the Member States. Please accept Mr. Ambassador the assurances of my highest consideration, Judge Homero M. Bibiloni, President [SIGNED] Judge Michel Bastarache [SIGNED], Judge Hector Arce [SIGNED] Judge Wilson Vallejo [SIGNED], Judge Magali Rojas [SIGNED] Cc : Luis Almagro, Secretary General Gonzalo Koncke, Chief of Staff- Secretary General Juan José Goldschtein, Interim Secretary of Administration and Finance Steven Griner, Staff Committee President Sherry Tross, Ombudsperson 5