Unilateral Termination of Employment of Pensionable Workers Held Unconstitutional – Between Equal Treatment, the Principle of Legality and Pure Formalism

Abstract

During the second wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, the Slovenian legislator adopted the Act Determining Intervention Measures to Assist in Mitigating the Consequences of the Second Wave of COVID-19 Epidemic (Zakon o interventnih ukrepih za pomoč pri omilitvi posledic drugega vala epidemije COVID-19). According to the draft law, the aim of the emergency piece of legislation was to mitigate and eliminate negative effects of the COVID-19 epidemic on businesses, the labour market, the healthcare system and social security schemes. Nevertheless, the intervention act also amended provisions concerning the termination of employment contract by introducing a new exception to the require- ment of a substantiated valid (business) reason for dismissing a worker. The employers in both private and public sector were now eligible to terminate the employment contracts of workers who met the conditions for acquiring the right to an old-age pension without stating or justifying any valid (business) reason whatsoever. The article examines the judgement of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia reached in a case put forward by Slovenian trade unions and the Advocate of the Principle of Equality, with an emphasis on the courts somewhat formalistic approach to what could have been a major antidiscrimination decision concerning old-age.