Implementation of Article 251 of the Labour Code in Higher Education

The Law on Higher Education and Science states that article 25¹ of the Labour Code which concerns the limitation of employment based on employment agreements for a definite time, on one hand, does not apply to first-time employed university teachers, to teachers for whom universities are not the main place of work nor teachers who are pensioners. On the other hand, the regulations of this article are still in effect with regard to the rest of university teachers and all other employees thereof. This solution cannot be positively evaluated due to its legislative inappropriateness in such aspects as excluding regulations concerning the limitation of employment based on employment agreements for a definite time and the results of exceeding those limits with simultaneous inclusion of regulations establishing exceptions to limits and employer’s obligations to implement them; and due to the legislation’s content such as inapplicability of article 25¹ of the Labour Code to the teachers for whom universities are not the main place of work and teachers who are pensioners, without adopting any type of mechanism excluding the excessive employment of these employee groups based on renewal of employment agreements for a definite time, as required by directive 99/70/EC. It is advisable to introduce changes in this field. It seems particularly worth noting that the proposal of enumerative determination in the Law on Higher Education and Science of cases in which university teachers could be employed under employment agreements for a definite time.