The sprint dismissal of the smart card players is safe from appeals. On Monday evening, the Council of Ministers approved a corrective decree on the fight against absenteeism in public offices.
In essence, the legislative decree published in the Official Gazette on 30 June 2016 is confirmed with which the government - in implementation of the Madia reform of the PA - introduced an accelerated procedure which allows in 30 days first to suspend and then to dismiss state workers who stamp without going to the office.
The provision passed yesterday does not change the legislation on the merits, but corrects the text in the light of the sentence with which the Constitutional Court at the end of November 2016 declared the Madia law partially illegitimate.
In particular, the Consulta - upon appeal by the Veneto Region - established that the government should have passed the rules on territorial competences after having obtained an agreement with the Regions, a simple "opinion" at the State-Regions conference not being sufficient.
The latest corrective decree arrives precisely following an agreement with the local authorities, protecting the PA from appeals against the procedures initiated on the basis of the old provision (which continue to have value in any case).
In substance, with the two decrees the government extends the concept of "false attestation" of the presence in the service, establishing that it occurs in the presence of "any fraudulent method". In this way, battles of goat's wool on the behavior of the individual employees concerned are defused.
The removal procedure is nothing short of expedited. The absentee caught in the act must be suspended within 48 hours of the episode. Together with the suspension, the employee must be sent a written complaint with the summons to the disciplinary proceedings office, which must be scheduled 15 days later to guarantee the right of defence. After that, within 20 days of the start of the procedure, the public body must report the worker to the regional prosecutor's office of the Court of Auditors. At the end of the 30th day, the absentee must be fired. In five months (there were four according to the original decree) the employee's liability action must also be closed.
Finally, the new rules also establish the dismissal and disciplinary responsibility for executives who, despite being aware of the absenteeism episode, do not initiate the suspension-dismissal procedure.
