Decision no. 361/2025 was recently published in the Official Gazette, with the HCCJ noting that the granting of maternal risk leave results in the automatic suspension of the individual employment contract, since, during this period, the two essential obligations of the employment relationship, namely the performance of work by the employee and the payment of the salary by the employer, are suspended.
The High Court therefore classified maternal risk leave as a form of “temporary incapacity for work” within the meaning of Article 50(b) of the Labour Code, through a systematic and teleological interpretation of the rules, taking into account the identity of reason: the objective impossibility of performing work for medical reasons not attributable to the employee and the existence of a specific allowance from the social health insurance system.
The Court invoked the need for a consistent interpretation (ubi eadem est ratio, idem jus) in the context of legislative terminological inconsistency, in order to avoid inferior protection compared to other cases of temporary incapacity for work and to ensure the effects of the suspension of rights provided for in Articles 49-50 of the Labour Code. Consequently, the HCCJ ruled that “maternity leave constitutes a case of suspension of the individual employment contract within the meaning of Article 50(b) of the Labour Code.”