Labour Code and Juslabour Repertoir

The Labour Code and Juslabour Repertoir is in many ways an open work. It is so because the recent legislative reform demands that, although it does not translate itself into a radical innovation of normative solutions, it constitutes, through civilistic inspiration, a revision in Labor Law. However, the time required to assess the implications of this change has not yet elapsed. Secondly, this is a recent project and which aims to include, in addition to this publication, a wide and diversified set of working tools, namely with regard to the integration of the various informational elements of the heritage Juslaboural. Then, we also intend that the organisation and functionality of the book corresponded to the preferential needs of those who daily applies the Labour Law. Whenever possible, we have therefore highlighted the practical requirements based on strict scientific criteria. For these reasons, we cannot fail to consider our work as a work in progress to the proposed objectives and to the enrichment that the experience of its recipients can give.

In this volume, in a first part, we gather a collection of legislation that integrates the main diplomas of the internal legal-labour system - the Constitution, the Labour Code and the respective Regulation, as well as the Labour Procedure Code - and the supranational legal system - Community directives and ILO Conventions ratified by Portugal.

Looking for a balance of the materials we did not include the full text of some diplomas. Thus, under national law, we underline only the articles of the Constitution that are called up more frequently in the dependent labour sector. Also at the international level, we chose to present only the Directives referred in Article 2 of Law No. 99/2003, of 27 August, which approves the Labour Code, since we believe those are the ones with greater impact. As for the ILO Conventions, we believe they are quite significant, not only because of their number and extent, but, above all, because of the usefulness of their content in view of the technical and legal improvement. With regard to domestic law, we deliberately omit special legislation, since substantial changes are also underway, and it is certain that the Code's regulation has significantly reduced the dispersion of legal diplomas peripheral to the regime of the individual employment contract.

In view of the importance of the Constitutional Court Judgment No. 306/03, including for the unfinished controversy surrounding the unconstitutionality of the Labour Code and its regulation, we considered its integration in the whole minimum number of business tools, which is why a second part is entirely dedicated to it. Conveniently, we allow ourselves to slightly alter the formal arrangement of the text of this Judgment regarding to the version of the Diário da República, namely through the introduction of graphic highlights.

We could have chosen to end the collection with the part related to jurisprudence, however, considering the urgency and simplicity currently required in accessing information, whether doctrinal or jurisprudential, as well as the diversity of its means of support, we added a third part directed exclusively to an informative repertoire. There, there is a bibliographic list of the juslaboral literature, a selection of uri addresses and several synoptic tables, aiding an easier relationship between the revoked legal diplomas and the Community Directives considered transposed to the internal legal order, either by the Labour Code or by the subsequent regulation.

The bibliographic list is, at this moment, only a possible record of the majority of the national doctrinal production after 1974 and the embryo of a possible database. We know it is incomplete, but, nevertheless, we were prepared to publish it through the modest contest for a quick approximation to the memory of Labour Law. We cannot, however, fail to request the benevolence of the authors whose works have been totally or partially omitted due to the difficulty in obtaining elements in a timely manner.
Regarding the list of Community Directives, it should be clarified that the tables are merely accessories for consultation of the Code and regulations, not representing any agreement or disagreement as to the effective and complete new legislation.

We therefore sought that the heterogeneity of the components made possible an enrichment of the whole and, above all, that the requirements of practicality were not unprofessionally sacrificed. This is, modestly, the objective that motivates this publication.

Maria Regina G. Redinha
António Sandinha Serra

Almedina