LABOUR | The Jobs Act on the dismissal for objective reasons (redundancy) referred to the Constitutional Court

Newsletter n. 89 – October 2023

LABOUR

The Jobs Act on the dismissal for objective reasons (redundancy) referred to the Constitutional Court

In a ruling dated 27 September 2023, the Court of Ravenna referred to the Italian Constitutional Court the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3.2 of Legislative Decree No. 23/2015  (one of the implementing decrees of the so-called “Jobs Act”), insofar as it does not provide for reinstatement in the case of dismissal for an objective reason (redundancy), even if the dismissal is found to be unlawful due to the lack of the alleged reason. According to the Court of Ravenna, the provision that excludes the application of the reinstatement for such cases could be considered as unconstitutional because, among other things, it would lead to an unjustified difference in treatment between cases of disciplinary dismissal (whose allegations are found to be unfounded, as opposed to employees dismissed for an objective reason, which is determined to be groundless) and with respect to cases of workers hired before the entry into force of the decree in question (i.e. 7 March 2015). In fact, the aforementioned provision only provides for economic compensation of 6 to 36 monthly salaries, as the sole consequence of the established unfairness of the dismissal for objective reasons.