A new Labor Procedure Code (LPC) has been recently approved by Law no. 2/24, of 19 March 2024. The new LPC repeals and replaces all statutes that regulated the rules of process before the Labour Courts, notably some provisions of the Strike Law (Law no. 23/91, of 15 June 1991), Law no. 22-B/92, of 9 September 1992 (Law that Extinguished the ancient Labor Justice Bodies), the Labor Justice Law (Law no. 9/81, of 2 November 1981), Resolution no. 12/81, of 7 November 1981 (Regulations on Social Security and Accidents at Work), Joint Executive Decree no. 3/82, of 11 January 1982 (that approves the Labor Justice Law Regulations), and Decree-Law no. 45 497, of 30 December 1963 (that approved the former Labor Procedure Code, which was partially in force).

Amongst the new rules approved by the LPC the following are the most relevant:

• The new LPC defines innovative litigation procedures concerning unfair disciplinary and redundancy dismissals, workman compensation claims and illegal strike declarations.
• The precedence of prior conciliation or mediation proceedings, mandatory under the former rules on process, was in general revoked, hence allowing the direct filing of Court claims by plaintiffs.
• The unions were given procedural powers to represent their affiliated employees in individual labor claims.

The LPC becomes effective on 19 Abril and shall apply to all pending procedures.

For more information on this Alert please contact: 
[email protected]