On 19 May, with ruling no. 125, the Constitutional Court intervened once again on art. 18 of the workers’ statute, as amended by the Monti-Fornero reform of 2012.

The part altered by the Court concerned the scope of reinstatement protection. According to the text of the law, unjustly dismissed workers would only have the right to be reinstated in the event of the “manifest non-existence” of the event underlining an economic dismissal, while in other cases they would only have the right to economic protection.

However, the Court took the view that limiting real protection to mere “manifest” absence is discriminatory and unreasonable, and therefore removed the “manifest” attribute from the text of the provision. As a result, unjustly dismissed workers are now entitled to real protection in the event of a simple “non-existence” of the event invoked by the employer.

To comment on this important decision, we are publishing an article by Prof. Oronzo Mazzotta, Professor Emeritus of Labour Law at the University of Pisa.