The Constitutional Court, with sentence no. 303 of November 11, 2011, declared lawful the system for compensation introduced by the so called “Collegato Lavoro” for the fixed-term employment contracts. The provision on which the Supreme Court pronounced its opinion is Article 32, paragraphs 5 and 6, of Law no. 183/2010 which establishes an indemnity, whose amounts ranges between 2.5 and 12 monthly installments, which has to be paid by the employer to the employee in the event that the latter obtained the conversion of a previous fixed-term employment contract into an open-ended one. The question of constitutionality was raised by the Supreme Court and, before that, by the Court of Trani arguing that such provision limited the right of citizens to work and to judicial protection. The Constitutional Court rejected all arguments clarifying that the mentioned indemnity improves the guarantee of the fixed-term employment contract conversion into an open-ended one and that the new system of compensation does not allow the deduction of the aliunde perceptum and that, therefore, from this point of view, it is even more favorable to the employee.
