Judgment of the Supreme Court, Social Division, No. 1250/2024, dated 18 November 2024.
On 18 November last, Supreme Court Ruling No. 1250/2024 was published, which can be said to have marked a turning point in Spanish labour law, specifically with regard to the conditions that must be met in order to correctly carry out a disciplinary dismissal.
Under Spanish employment law, Article 55 of the Workers' Statute (ET) regulates the form and effects of disciplinary dismissal, including the requirement that the employer notify the employee in writing, stating the facts on which the dismissal is based and the date on which the dismissal is to take effect. However, this article does not provide for the requirement that the worker must be given a prior hearing so that he/she has the possibility of defending him/herself against the charges brought against him/her, which is provided for in Article 7 of Convention 158 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
In this regard, the High Court reminds us that the legal norms contained in international treaties validly concluded and officially published must prevail over any other norm of domestic law in the event of conflict between them (except for norms of constitutional rank). Therefore, the ILO Convention must prevail over the ET and, therefore, the worker will have the right to a prior hearing in order to be able to defend himself against disciplinary dismissal because this is established in art. 7 of ILO Convention 158, which will be applied in preference to article 55 of the ET, which does not expressly include the right to a prior hearing.
In conclusion, as of 19 November of this year, companies will not be able to dismiss their workers disciplinarily without opening a ‘prior hearing’, and this new regulation will not be retroactive for dismissals already carried out beforehand. If they do not do so, they run a serious risk of the dismissal being considered unfair, with the inherent consequences.
