Civil Servants. Lawsuits Brought By Trade Unions. Controversies Over Territorial Jurisdiction

This study is focused on the divergences of jurisprudence that appeared following the amendment, as at mid2018, of the rules of territorial jurisdiction inserted in the content of the Law on Administrative Contentious. The new provisions establish the exclusive territorial jurisdiction of the administrative contentious court of the place of domicile of the natural person or of the place of registered office of the legal person of private law, part of the judicial conflict of administrative law, facilitating the access to justice of the individual by the proximity of the seat of the court, the reduction of paid court charges etc. However, the desiderata taken into account by the initiators of the legislative amendment were not achieved in the case of disputes brought by trade unions having as scope of works the employment relationships of civil servants, trade union members. The different appreciation of the capacity in which the trade union can participate in the lawsuit (plaintiff or simple representative of the civil servant) determines jurisprudential divergences in establishing the competent court from a territorial point of view, successive dismissals and numerous negative conflicts of jurisdiction. Analysing the legislative framework and the relevant jurisprudence, including from the point of view of their evolution, at the end of the study concrete proposals are made to underlie the unification of jurisprudence and even the regulation of special rules of territorial jurisdiction in disputes that call into question the employment relationship of the civil servant.