The Absence of the Employee due to the Medical or Diagnostic Examination of His or Her Child

Abstract

According to the current Slovak legislation, which also determines the conditions for important personal obstacles at work, the employer is obliged to excuse the absence of an employee for the reason of accompanying his or her child to a medical facility for examination or treatment. The scientific paper deals with situations where it is necessary for an employee to accompany a child to various other diagnostic examinations which are not carried out in medical institutions. These obligations are imposed by specific legislation and must be fulfilled by the employee as the legal representative of minors in compulsory schooling or pre-primary education in relation to establishments operating under the education regulations. However, there is no excuse for the absence of an employee in the Labour Code or in other legislation in the area of education. Since these cases cannot be explicitly covered by any statutory regulation of personal obstacles to work on the part of the employee, a dispute arises in application practice between the employee and the employer as to the justification for the employee’s absence from work. This is also based on incorrect information provided by the education’s authorities who instruct the legal representatives that the employer must excuse the absence, as their child is undergoing certain examinations.