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INTERIM RELIEF

An employee who has suffered dismissal may bring an action to contest it in the courts, as laid down by procedural law (see dismissal , unfair/wrongful dismissal: legal action against dismissal ). However, pending the court's decision, even if the dismissal is manifestly unfair or wrongful and raises no doubts the employment relationship is de facto terminated. The employee concerned is excluded from the enterprise and deprived of pay, until he or she obtains a favourable ruling from the court. To obviate the cases of greatest hardship, Portuguese law has established a supplementary form of protection for an employee who has been dismissed, i.e . interim relief, whereby the dismissal is provisionally suspended (Article 14, Termination of the Employment Contract and Fixed-Term Contracts Act). It is applicable to individual dismissal, collective dismissal and individual redundancy. An application for interim relief must be submitted to the court within five working days of receiving notification of the employer's decision to effect dismissal. Under Article 43 of the Code of Labour Procedure, the court will order interim relief only if no disciplinary procedure has been initiated, if such a procedure is null and void, or if, after weighing up the relevant circumstances, it considers there to be a strong probability that no just cause for dismissal exists. Should there be any doubt, the court may not order interim relief. The only exception to this is where the employee who has been dismissed is a workplace union representative or workers' commission member, for whom the rule is the opposite: interim relief is ordered automatically, unless the court considers there to be a strong probability that the dismissal is justified.

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