The discretion of the court has been reduced
08/04/2015
The Italian government shows little esteem for the discretion of the court: new Italian Job Act exhaustively establishes the consequences of unlawful dismissal. Cases are regulated in details: reinstaitment can be ordered only, if the disciplinary offense doesn’t exist or isn’t committed by the employee. In all the other cases of unlawful dismissal, the court issues an order to pay a compensation, which is exactly quantified by law (two months’salary per year worked from a minimum of 4 months to a maximum of 24 months): judges are equated to the accountants.
With these new rules, companies can provide for costs of an unlawful dismissal. Judges don’t have discretion anymore.
However, new rules only apply to hires subsequent to February 2015: as far as contracts concluded before this date are concerned, the court still have wide discretion.
In Italy, employees were protected by art. 18 of act n. 300/1970 (usually called “employees statue”), until 2014: workers unjustly fired could sue their employer for being reinstated to their job and for damages (salaries from firing to reinstating). So, if the judge had declared unlawful dismissal, companies had to pay years of salary and social security contribution, even if they didn’t’ get any job performance by fired employees (Italian trials were really slow). From 2015, this won’t happen anymore. In case of unlawful dismissal, employers will only have to pay damages to workers. This compensation will be reasonable: from 4 to 24 months of salary (2 months per year of working). Employees won’t have the right to be reinstated to their job, except for specific situations. So, if he doesn’t appreciate the worker, the employer won’t be obliged to readmit him in his company (except for racial, political and religious discrimination). According to new acts, civil trials are faster, thanks to their computerization. Now payment orders can be issued in a few days. Before, it took several months. Besides, debtors that refuse payments are obliged to pay default interest of 9%. So they have no incentive to delay payments: this would be too expensive. Creditors can ask the court for an order to search in public records debtor’s goods and current accounts to be attached (now access to records is allowed only to specialized agencies) . This new procedural instrument allows to attack debtor's assets more easily. Creditors will be satisfied effectively and more quickly. In this section of the website, we are going to show all this brandnew rules.
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