EMPLOYEE WARNING NOTICE PRIOR TO EMPLOYMENT TERMINATION IN THE LEGISLATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA – purpose, scope and legal consequences

Abstract

Throughout the history of labour law, a dismissal has been the most powerful instrument allowing employers to “free” themselves from another contracting party without consequences. In contemporary development, there is a tendency to establish objective limitations on the termination of employment relationship by law, and thus provide employees with full protection during the procedure for the termination of an employment contract by the employer. These are the origins of the development of labour law. The author points out that since amending the Labor Law in 2014, domestic labor legislation has taken the opposite direction - towards tendencies destabilizing employees’ position in the employment relationship and allowing the employers greater "freedom" in the employment contract termination. In this paper, the author analyses the procedure of the delivery of warning and legal consequences of the final verdict confirming the employer acted contrary to provisions of the law prescribing the procedure for employment termination. There is a controversy regarding Article 191, paragraph 7 of the Labour Law stipulating that if during the proceedings the court determines there were grounds for termination of the employment relationship, whereas the employer acted contrary to provisions of the law prescribing the procedure for termination of employment, the court shall reject the request of the employee to return to work, and shall order the payment of compensation for the employee’s damages. By this provision, the legislator has relativized the dismissal procedure and allowed convalidation of procedural flaws by a court decision. Based on the concept of the rule of law implying due process of law as a guarantee of legal certainty, the aim of this paper is to indicate that material and procedural norms equally influence the legality of the termination of an employment contract.