May I know the reason for my dismissal?
If you have been with your employer for more than six months, in principle, you are entitled to know the reason for your dismissal. However, there are some exceptions to this rule.
However, this right does not exist in the following cases:
- You are connected by an employment contract for temporary work with an employment agency and therefore not directly with the employer
- You are bound by an employment contract for student employment
- You have been dismissed with a view to entering the regime of unemployment with company allowance
- You have been dismissed within the framework of an open-ended employment contract from the first day of the month following the month in which you reach the statutory retirement age
- You were made redundant due to the definitive cessation of activity, the closure of an enterprise, a collective redundancy or a multiple redundancy (defined at sectoral level)
- You have been dismissed within the framework of a "special dismissal procedure" defined by law or a collective labour agreement, for example: you are protected within the framework of the social elections or prevention advisers)
- You have been dismissed for an urgent reason
If your employer has already communicated the reasons for dismissal in writing itself, it is obviously not obliged to respond to a request for justification from you later. But if it has not communicated those reasons, you can still ask by registered letter to communicate those reasons. If there is a notice period, you must make this request to your employer within a period of six months from the service of the notice, and at the latest within a period of two months from the end of the employment contract. Your employer is then obliged to send the concrete reasons for dismissal to the employee by registered mail within two months of receiving the request. If the latter does not reply within the deadline or does not provide concrete reasons for dismissal, your employer must pay you a fixed civil penalty equivalent to two weeks' wages.
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