The claimant is represented by advocate Joanna Młot of CMS Cameron McKenna.
Giving the oral justification of the judgment, the Supreme Court rejected the claimant’s submissions. It argued that considering the status of a judicial assistant to a Supreme Administrative Court’s judge a situation where such an assistant starts a professional training for legal advisors without first notifying his superiors of his intention to do so, would result in a unilateral amendment of employment terms.
Since October 2004, M.R. was employed at the Commercial Chamber of the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC). In 2005, she assumed a position of the judicial assistant. She was given positive performance appraisals by the judges with whom she worked and the President of the Commercial Chamber of the SAC. M.R. contends that she notified her superiors as soon as she found out the results of her exam for admission into a professional training programme, held on 19 September 2009. Because of the number of successful candidates who had taken exam in 2009 it was only on 8 January 2010 that a resolution on an entry into the list of legal advisor trainees was delivered to M.R. On 14 January 2010 the claimant delivered the resolution the administrative court’s authorities.
At the end of January 2010 the Supreme Administrative Court terminated M.R.’s employment, giving her a three-month notice. The SAC cited a potential for a conflict of interest that might arise in the course of the assistant performing the tasks of the legal advisor trainee. In addition, the Court referred to the loss of trust resulting from “the depletion of the store of loyalty by [claimant’s] delaying the moment of informing the Supreme Administrative Court of her intention to undertake professional training for legal advisors until she was actually admitted to such training”.
M.R. appealed against the dismissal, alleging that her employer had infringed art. 183a(1) and (2) of the Labour Code, which provides for equality of treatment of employees with respect to the conclusion and termination of the employment relationship, terms of employment and promotion and access to training courses to upgrade one’s professional qualifications. In her submissions, the claimant argued that the Supreme Administrative Court had not terminated employment contracts concluded with other assistants, court clerks or members of information department staff undergoing the same legal training. She further contended that a conflict of interest can also exist in the case of those employees combining a legal advisor’s training with their work for the court. M.R. sought compensation for wrongful termination.
In December 2010 the District Court for Warszawa-Śródmieście ruled in favour M.R. and awarded her the amount of PLN 15,000 in damages (case no. VII P 121/10). According to the first-instance court, none of the currently applicable laws prohibits to combine the role of a judicial assistant to a Supreme Administrative Court’s judge with undertaking professional training for legal advisors.
In June 2011 the Circuit Court in Warsaw reversed the District Court’s decision and dismissed the complaint. The Court held that each and every ordinary or administrative court was a specific employer, whose obligation was to act in the interest of the justice system.
