The Supreme Court has agreed that companies cannot disciplinaryly dismiss workers without opening a prior hearing processthat is, without offering them the possibility of defending themselves against the charges or accusations on which the dismissal is based.
In a ruling dated November 13, the plenary session of the Social Chamber of the High Court has unanimously upheld an appeal from the Foundation for Higher Studies of Music and Performing Arts of the Balearic Islands (FERMAE-IB) against a February 2023 ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of that autonomous community.
Thus, before proceeding with the dismissal, the magistrates point out, the worker must be able to defend oneself against irregularities attributed to itas stipulated in the International Labor Organization (ILO) convention in force since 1982. This decision is thus based on the need to directly apply article 7 of Agreement number 158 of said organization.
In this way, the Court has now modified its own doctrine, established in the 1980s. The Supreme Court justifies this change by “the changes that have occurred in our system during all this time”, such as the law of International Treaties, the constitutional doctrine, the qualification of the dismissal itself, or the inapplicability of the most favorable norm globally.
The ILO Convention thus requires this hearing prior to dismissal “unless it cannot reasonably be requested of the employer” as occurs in the case analyzed, in which the company was protected by jurisprudential criteria which, having remained in time and in relation to that same disposition, freed him from such a requirement.
Therefore, the present doctrine It is only required for new dismissalss, those that occur after the sentence has been made public, the ruling adds.
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