Summary Examination of the Judicial Practice of Labor Cases: Labor Rights Issues

The “Protection of Rights without Borders” Non-Governmental Organization conducted an examination on the judicial practice of employment disputes in the Republic of Armenia.

In the scope of the monitoring, approximately 496 cases on employment relations were monitored, from which 384 decisions by civil and 112 decisions by administrative cases, as well as 123 decisions on discontinuation were adopted. 

By the examination, a number of problems related to the labor rights in Armenia were detected, especially issues related to the appealing of the decisions on dismissal, levy of the salary and other relevant payments, change of the essential conditions of employment, appealing of disciplinary penalties, appointment of pension, confirmation of the professional work experience and on other related issues.

By the examined cases it was recorded, that for example, the employers failed to provide the employees the employment contracts or/and the decisions on dismissal, a proper notification on the possible expected reductions was not carried out, another job opportunity was not proposed to the employee and the latter was not informed about the impossibility of proposing another job opportunity, in case of disciplinary violation, an explanation on the violation was not required from the employee, the factual or/and the legislative ground was missing from the dismissal decision, the decisions on dismissal were adopted on non-working days, etc.

In the outcomes of the examination of the judicial acts, problems related both to the legislative gaps and incomplete regulations (for example, lack of judicial grounds for concluding employment contracts for a certain time period, clarity in legislative regulations for the dismissal on disciplinary violation, etc.) and the issues related to the contradictory judicial practice (for example the issue of the applicant being exempt from paying state duty fee by labor disputes, evaluation of the of the main and derivative claims by labor disputes, final settlement of the pension, including in terms of the decisions on work experience, maintenance of Article 214 of the Republic of Armenia Civil Procedure Code and in regard to other issues) were detected.

In the outcomes of the examination, a number of recommendations on the improving the legislative and practical aspects of the labor relations, as well as on the awareness raising on labor rights were presented both to legislative, executive and judicial branches of the Government, respectively.

The given report was prepared by the “Protection of Rights without Borders” Non-Governmental Organization in the scope of the “EU4LabourRights: Increasing Civic Voice and Action for Labor Rights and Social Protection in Armenia” project (hereinafter referred to as the Project). The Project is implemented in collaboration with “OxYGen” Foundation, “Socioscope” NGO, “Asparez” Journalists Club NGO, Media Diversity Institute – Armenia and “Armenian Progressive Youth” NGO in partnership with the “Protection of Rights without Borders” NGO and Eurasian Partnership Foundation, respectively. The Project is financed by the European Union.