Labor Law Justified Termination Periods and Compensation Risk

Within the scope of the Labor Law, employees and employers who want to exercise their right of justified termination must take into account the legal deadlines of 6 working days from the learning of the event and at the latest 1 year; exceeding these periods brings the risk of compensation.

Legal Regulations and Justified Termination

The Labor Law provides both the employee and the employer with the opportunity to terminate the employment contract immediately in the event of violations of rules of morality and goodwill. An employee with at least one year of seniority can leave the job by receiving severance pay when exercising this right within the legal period. The employer, on the other hand, can terminate the contract of an employee who acts contrary to the rules of honesty and goodwill without compensation.

Critical Time Limits

In order to exercise the right of termination for a justified reason, two separate periods must be taken into account. The 6-working-day period starts to run after the event subject to termination and the relevant person with termination authority learns about it. In addition, there is a maximum upper limit of 1 year in any case from the date the event occurred.

Period Calculation Principles

Sundays and official holidays are not evaluated as working days in the calculation of the period. With the end of the working hours on the sixth working day, the legal period envisaged for exercising the right of termination is also completed.

Consequences of Exceeding Time Limits

Terminations made later due to the right of termination not being used within the periods are considered an action not based on a justified reason. While the party who misses the period faces the risk of paying notice compensation, the obligation of severance pay may come to the agenda for the employer who makes a mistake in the termination timing, and the courts take these periods into account ex officio.