Termination of employment
What are the cases, when an eployee could be dissmissed? Czech legislation presented by legal concepts of the Italian law.
The Czech legal regulation of termination of emlpyment in comparison with the Italian legal regulation has an advantage of being complex involved in a sole legal text, i.e. in the Labour Code. The provision of §52 and the following regulates the possible termination of employment by the emloyee or by the employer. And we will deal with these employer's reasons of termination in detail.
It is important to notice, that in the Labour Code the provision relating to the agreement of termination of employment precedes the provision relating to the notice of termination. In the Czech Republic the agreement of termination is wide-spread and it consist in the fact, that the parties agree (in writting) on the termination of the emloyment on the certain date. If the agreement proposal is given by employer, then it depens on the employee's will, if he wants the reasons of termination to be mentioned in the agreement. Which could mean, that behind the agreement form lies actually the requirement for leaving the employment, to which the employee agrees and confirms it by signing the agreement. These facts would be hardly acceptable in the Italian law.
Concernig the termination of the employment itself, in the Czech Republic there is an inadequate functioning legal doctrine and because of this fact the kinds of termination are distinguished in accordance with the methods and forms, by which the termination was served and not in accordance with the substantial reasons of termination. It all together with common translation difficulties causes, that the lay public has difiiculties with understanding to this subject matter. In following lines we will try to clarify these question relating to the termination of employment by the use of terms, which are common to the Italian labour law.
One kind of termination of the employment is the notice of termination, which could be served by emloyer on the empolyee for reasons explicitly specified by the law. We can recognize two groups of reasons, which are similar to the objective and subjective „lawful reasons" as it is defined by the Italian law.
The first group (objective „lawful reasons") refer to those cases, when the company is dissolved or just partially displaced or when the employee becomes redundant regarding to the structural or production changes. The second group (subjective „lawful reasons") is represented by cases, when the empolyee becomes unable to perform his work in terms of health, is unable to perform his work goals properly, or if he does not fulfil the presumptions defined by the law or because of the serious breach of employment discipline - in principle for the reasons relating to emloyee's qualities or matters. In all cases the employer is is obliged to serve the notice of termination of emloyment in writting and to give the reasons, otherwise the notice of termination is invalid, and is also obliged to observe the period of notice, which lasts two months at least.
The other kind of termination of employment is its instant notice of termination. In Italy it would be called a dismissal for the „justified reasons" with an important clarification, that in the Czech Republic justa causa means also a serious breach of employee's discipline or duties arising out of the law. As an example can serve a legal case, which was held by the Highest Court few years ago, it was related to a woman employee, that broke the office doors in the evening, she took away the company documentation and left the office opened and unsecured. Among other similar cases the instant notice of termination can be served in cases, if the employee is convicted of a crime for the term of one year or six months. In such cases the notice of termination is instant effective on condition of a written notice served by the employer and observing the time limits stated by the law.
In all cases when the termination of employment is caused by the objective lawful reason (and in one case of subjective lawful reason) the employee is entitled to get the compensation money amounting to multiple gross wage determinated by the special rule specified by the Labour Code. The employee is entitled to get the same compensation money as well in a case of termination of the emloyment per the agreement, however because of the same reasons, which entitle to get the compensation money in a case of notice of termination.
Massimiliano Pastore