The Labour Judge who «Ranks Against»

The settlement of disputes in public employment has been entrusted to ordinary judges for twenty years now. The change from a specialized judge to an ordinary judge produced significant impacts on the management of disputes, without, however, appearing to yield satisfactory results. If labour law proceedings are traditionally designed to protect the employee, who represents the weak party in the labour relations, when the employer is the public administration, there may be overprotection of the interests of civil servants. In addition, labour judges lack knowledge of the public administration’s systems and its functioning, and may therefore take decisions that are not correctly balanced or that could affect the administration’s prerogatives. These distortions may produce negative effects on both procedural and substantive aspects, as well as on the management of relations with trade unions.