Ricardo Morante Esteve, an attorney at Ejaso Esteve law firm and the Chair of the Labour Law Section of the Barcelona Bar Association, spoke at the UIC on Wednesday, 30 January 2013. As part of the continuing education cycle organized by the UIC Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences, Morante Esteve spoke on the topic "Why Lawful Dismissal is Virtually Impossible".
Based on his more than 25 years of legal practice,
Morante Esteve reviewed the concept of lawful dismissal for disciplinary
reasons in light of the latest labour reform, specifically the requirements of
Articles 54 and 55 of the Workers' Statute. He focused on both theory and
practice by providing numerous examples to illustrate his points.
He said, "Dismissal is the most severe penalty
and not all cases of a failure to comply warrant such a penalty". After a
careful analysis of the different reasons used for lawful dismissals, Morante
Esteve said, "It is clear that companies will have a very hard time using
the concept of lawful dismissal due to the difficulty of providing proof and
judges' lack of interest in treating such dismissals as valid. In general,
common practice is to assume the employee is innocent and decide in the
employee's favour when in doubt".
Finally, in reference to the title chosen for the
lecture, Morante Esteve said, "It's not that it's impossible to dismiss
someone, but you have to know how to follow the rules and do the right thing.
You can't just have a good reason. It has to be something the employee has done
on a regular basis".
