JUDGMENT NO. 174

YEAR 2026

ITALIAN REPUBLIC

IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

composed of:

President: Giovanni AMOROSO;

Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Massimo LUCIANI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,

has delivered the following

JUDGMENT

in proceedings concerning the constitutionality of Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 15 July 1966 (Rules on individual dismissals), brought by the Ordinary Court of Livorno, acting as a labor court, in the proceedings pending between I. S. and M. L., by means of an order dated 12 February 2026, registered under no. 39 of the 2026 register of orders and published in the Official Journal of the Republic No. 11, 1st special series, for the year 2026.

Having heard in chambers on 6 July 2026 the Judge Rapporteur Antonella Sciarrone Alibrandi;

Having deliberated in chambers on 6 July 2026.

Règne of Fact (Statement of Facts)

1.– By order dated 12 February 2026 (ord. reg. no. 39 of 2026), the Ordinary Court of Livorno, acting as a labor court, raised questions regarding the constitutional legitimacy of Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 15 July 1966 (Rules on individual dismissals), with reference to Articles 3 (first and second paragraphs), 4 (first paragraph), 35 (first paragraph), 41 (second paragraph), and 117 (first paragraph) of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 24 of the European Social Charter (ESC), adopted in Turin on 18 October 1961 and revised, with annex, in Strasbourg on 3 May 1996, ratified and made enforceable by Law No. 30 of 9 February 1999.

2.– The main proceedings originate from an appeal brought by I. S. against the dismissal served upon her on 4 July 2024 by M. L., who had succeeded (on 1 June 2022) to the ownership of the dental practice for which the applicant had performed duties as a healthcare assistant – under an open-ended part-time employment contract – starting from 1 November 2003 without any interruption.

The referring judge set out the facts of the employment relationship, stating that during the first six months of 2024, I. S. had been served with three disciplinary charges, followed by a dismissal of charges and two disciplinary sanctions, which were deemed preposterous and, in any event, contested.

This was followed by the notice of dismissal, issued for just cause and without notice, based on alleged shortcomings concerning the sterilization procedures for work instruments.

Against the dismissal act, which indicated the employment relationship as having commenced only as of 1 June 2022, the employee had filed an appeal seeking a declaration of «ineffectiveness and/or nullity and/or unlawfulness and/or illegitimacy» of the served dismissal, requesting an order for reinstatement and the payment of compensation «not less than 6 months' and not more than 36 months' pay based on the last overall de facto remuneration», as well as «the notice-substitute indemnity», plus interest and currency devaluation adjustments.

The employer, in entering an appearance, contested, inter alia, the applicability of Article 3 of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 4 March 2015 (Provisions concerning open-ended employment contracts with progressive protections, implementing Law No. 183 of 10 December 2014): in their view, should the applicant's claims be upheld, the sanctioning regime set forth in Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 ought to apply, given that the employment relationship dated back to a time prior to 7 March 2015, and any compensation should not have exceeded the minimum amount of two and a half months of the last overall de facto remuneration.

This having been premised, the referring judge considers undisputed between the parties the circumstances of employment commencing from 1 November 2003, the lack of the necessary prior notice of disciplinary charges, the exemplary work conduct of the applicant in the twenty years preceding 2024, the amount of the agreed monthly remuneration, and the employment at the dental practice of fewer than fifteen employees.

3.– Regarding relevance, the court a quo, citing case law of the Court of Legitimacy (Supreme Court of Cassation), considers that the dismissal in question is not null and void, even if «tainted by illegitimacy under various aspects, including serious ones», such as the lack of prior disciplinary charges and the employer's failure to discharge the burden «of proving the grounds thereof».

However, given the impossibility of granting the request made in the appeal for an indemnity of not less than six and not more than thirty-six months, due to the inapplicability of Article 3 of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015 to an employment relationship established prior to 7 March 2015, the referring judge identifies the applicable sanctioning regime as the one dictated by the challenged provision.

Furthermore, considering the gravity of the flaws in the dismissal act and the subjective conditions of the party, the judge deems it necessary «to intervene with a dissuasive, deterrent and adequate sanction», consisting of an order to pay a high indemnity, «in any event certainly higher than the very limited maximum ceiling» set forth in Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966, according to which, in the case of an employer with fewer than fifteen employees (as in the present case), the amount of compensation due to the unlawfully dismissed employee «must be restricted within a range between 2.5 and 6 months».

In the view of the court a quo, such an indemnity would be entirely «devoid of the necessary compensatory and dissuasive character», specifically when referring in concrete terms to the criteria provided by the aforementioned Article 8, such as the worker's seniority of service, and the conduct and conditions of the parties.

This establishes the relevance of the raised questions, also because, due to the «clear wording of the provision», a conforming interpretation would not even be permissible.

4.– Regarding non-manifest unfoundedness, the court a quo challenges Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 to the extent that, «by providing a narrowed range (from 2.5 to 6 months), it sets a maximum and in any event insurmountable limit ("six months")».

More specifically, according to the referring judge, the doubts regarding constitutional legitimacy move «in two directions» and across multiple profiles.

5.– In a first direction, the interval comprised between a minimum of two and a half months and a maximum of six months of the last overall de facto remuneration, «combined with the provision of a frankly limited maximum ceiling», would conflict with a plurality of constitutional parameters.

5.1.– First of all, Articles 3 (first and second paragraphs) and 41 (second paragraph) of the Constitution would be infringed, «in a manner not dissimilar» to what this Court held in Judgment No. 118 of 2025, with reference to the discipline dictated by Article 9, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015, applicable only in the event of employment commencing after 7 March 2015.

5.1.1.– Under a first aspect, in comparing the protections provided to employees of an enterprise reaching the size thresholds referred to in Article 18 of Law No. 300 of 20 May 1970 (Rules on the protection of workers' freedom and dignity, trade union freedom and trade union activity in the workplace, and placement rules) and those provided for employees of a so-called "sub-threshold" enterprise, the challenged provision would also unjustifiably differentiate, as regards the sanctioning reaction, flaws of identical – or at least homogeneous – gravity, such as the non-existence of the imputed fact: for employees of large-scale enterprises, depending on the gravity of the flaw affecting the dismissal act, there would exist, on the one hand, the possibility – excluded for employees of "sub-threshold" enterprises – of reinstatement protection alongside compensatory protection and, on the other hand, monetary protection could be quantified «up to the significant measure of twenty-four months».

5.1.2.– Under a second aspect, internal entirely to "sub-threshold" enterprises, the challenged provision does not allow protection to be differentiated according to the gravity of the flaws vitiating the dismissal act, since those «more serious are treated like the less serious and vice versa». In this way, dismissal flaws extremely diverse from one another, such as the violation of the obligation to state reasons and the non-existence of the contested fact, would be unreasonably grouped together: regardless of the type of flaw afflicting the dismissal act, the protection would always be «relegated to an extremely limited statutory framework (from a minimum of 2.5 months to 6 months) without the possibility of real personalization in relation to the circumstances of the specific case», so that «profoundly different concrete situations would be treated in an equal (or extremely similar) manner», bringing into play a «standardized and so reduced protection» as to prove unsuitable for regulating events «producing unequal damages».

Moreover, «such a limited range for determining the compensatory indemnity» would not allow for the fulfillment of the criteria of personalization of compensation, nor of its adequacy and congruity, and would not even guarantee «the necessary deterrent scope that must accompany compensatory protection», according to the principles expressed by constitutional case law (reference is made to Judgments No. 150 of 2020 and No. 194 of 2018, from which the referring judge quotes extensive excerpts).

The case forming the subject of the main proceedings would confirm these assumptions.

In consideration of the employee's remuneration, the interval between the minimum and maximum indemnity could vary «from a sum equal to approximately 3,600 euros to a sum equal to approximately 8,600 euros», resulting in «an extremely reduced compensatory function of the compensatory protection, first and foremost, but also an essentially nullified deterrent scope thereof».

5.1.3.– In this manner, and simultaneously, human liberty and dignity, which Article 41, second paragraph, of the Constitution protects «even within small enterprises», would be infringed.

5.2.– Secondly, the provision of the maximum limit of six months would violate Article 4, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which, in recognizing the right to work for all citizens, concurrently provides for the Republic's commitment to foster conditions that render this right effective, «by removing obstacles to the stability of employment among which the provision of a sanction with dissuasive efficacy in the face of unlawful dismissal measures undoubtedly plays a predominant role».

5.3.– Furthermore, according to the referring judge – who cites constitutional case law in this regard (reproducing extensive excerpts) – the challenged provision would infringe Article 35, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which, by protecting labor in all its forms and applications, renders «the existence of a justifying reason underlying termination necessary».

5.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be violated, in relation to Article 24 of the ESC, which, especially in cases removed from reinstatement protection, mandates the «necessary adequacy of compensatory remedies» and, therefore, a compensatory protection «possessing suitable compensatory strength regarding what the worker has lost due to the unlawful dismissal and deterrent strength towards the employer author of the flawed dismissal act».

In cases of dismissal not supported by just cause, protection must always be guaranteed in compliance with the principles of effectiveness and reasonableness, whereas this does not appear to be guaranteed «by the provision of the maximum limit of six months», all the more so since, in the present case, due to the lack of the dimensional requirement provided therein, the discipline contained in the final period of the same Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 would not be applicable, according to which the maximum measure of the indemnity may be increased up to ten or fourteen months in the event of service seniority exceeding ten or twenty years, respectively.

6.– The challenges also proceed in a second direction.

The referring judge is aware that, according to constitutional case law, differentiated regulations over time that distinguish protections applicable to workers based on the date of hiring are not constitutionally illegitimate, provided that the principle of reasonableness is respected (citing Judgment No. 22 of 2024) and the deterrent function in the face of an unlawful dismissal is guaranteed (again citing Judgment No. 194 of 2018, together with Judgments No. 128 and No. 7 of 2024).

For the court a quo, offense would be caused to Article 3 (first and second paragraphs) of the Constitution, under the profiles of equality and reasonableness, by the different treatment «reserved for old and new hires» in smaller enterprises.

In the cited judgments, the different treatment introduced by Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015 for individual dismissals was considered respectful of the principle of equality because it was anchored to the non-unreasonable purpose pursued by the legislature of strengthening opportunities for entering the labor market for job seekers.

For the referring judge, however, «the current more detrimental treatment of old hires compared to new ones [...] has no rational foundation», also because it prevents «the valorization of the element of "seniority of service of the worker"», referred to precisely by the challenged provision. Therefore, at the very least, a «compensatory convergence between protections in pre- and post-reform small enterprises» would be required, also in consideration of the «tendentiously greater difficulty of job replacement for old hires, with a consequent tendentially greater impact of the damage».

7.– Having stated all the above, the referring judge does not ask this Court for «the mere removal of the limit represented by the current maximum ceiling of 6 months», because otherwise the judge would be attributed the power to «order redress essentially without limits». In articulating a substitutive *petitum*, he instead deems it possible to refer to the scheme of Article 9 of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015, which would regulate «a situation not only analogous but entirely overlapping, hence identical», to that disciplined by the challenged provision, from which it would differ only regarding the temporal data of the hiring of workers subject to the different protections.

For the court a quo, two paths would be abstractly possible: «the so-called fixed reference, or the so-called mobile reference», with respect to Article 9 of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015, as affected by this Court's Judgment No. 118 of 2025, of which the referring judge reproduces extensive motivational passages, considering the expressed principles applicable to the case at hand as well.

The referring judge, however, discards the first pathway, which would lead to the replacement of the current six-month limit with the ceiling of eighteen months currently provided in the event of unlawful dismissal of employees hired in small enterprises after 7 March 2015. This is because, having regard to those hired before 7 March 2015 not employed by "sub-threshold" enterprises, «the maximum "pure" compensatory protection (i.e., completely untethered from reinstatement)» finds its discipline in Article 18 of the Workers' Statute, which provides for the limit of twenty-four months. The hypothesized replacement, instead, «would completely frustrate the protection of the small enterprise, which nonetheless has a constitutional foundation».

For the illustrated reasons, the referring judge asks this Court for a different substitutive ruling, referencing Article 9 of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015 only regarding the "halving" mechanism provided therein, to be applied, however, to the higher compensatory ceiling of twenty-four months contemplated by Article 18, fifth paragraph, of the Workers' Statute, for the monetary-only protection due to workers hired by large-scale enterprises prior to 7 March 2015.

8.– In conclusion, the court a quo asks this Court to declare Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 constitutionally illegitimate to the extent that, in designing the compensatory interval, it provides for «a maximum of 6 months of the last overall de facto remuneration» instead of «a maximum of 12 months of the last overall de facto remuneration».

9.– None of the parties to the main proceedings made an appearance, nor did the President of the Council of Ministers intervene.

10.– On 7 April 2026, written opinions were filed by the Association Comma2 - Lavoro è dignità and the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL).

These opinions were admitted by presidential decree dated 29 April 2026.

Both *amici curiae* share the arguments underlying the referral order, but criticize the solution proposed for the *reductio ad legitimitatem* of the challenged provision.

CGIL, in particular, advocates a substitutive intervention "along internal lines" to Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 itself, proposing the «replacement of the 6-month ceiling with that of 14 months, also provided for by the current rule», which would become the general limit within which to perform the evaluation of the concrete case correlated with the multiple criteria dictated by the challenged provision.

The Association Comma2 - Lavoro è dignità, instead, considers that, in the absence of "obliged rhymes", an adequate solution already to be found within the legal system is precisely the compensatory ceiling provided by Article 9, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015, which, following Judgment No. 118 of 2025, «provides for a variable indemnity between 3 and 18 months».

Considered in Law

11.– By the order indicated in the heading (ord. reg. no. 39 of 2026), the Court of Livorno, acting as a labor court, raises questions regarding the constitutional legitimacy of Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966, alleging its conflict with Articles 3 (first and second paragraphs), 4 (first paragraph), 35 (first paragraph), 41 (second paragraph), and 117 (first paragraph) of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 24 of the ESC.

The provision is challenged to the extent that, in regulating the consequences of unlawful dismissal because served in the absence of just cause or justified reason, it provides for the employer – who fails to reach the size thresholds provided by Article 18 of the Workers' Statute and who does not reinstate within three days the worker hired before 7 March 2015 – the obligation to compensate the damage through the payment of «a maximum of 6 months of the last overall de facto remuneration» instead of «a maximum of 12 months of the last overall de facto remuneration».

12.– In the main proceedings, concerning the dismissal served for disciplinary reasons upon an employee of a small dental practice, there is no dispute between the parties either as to the hiring date, which is peacefully prior to 7 March 2015, or as to the employment of fewer than fifteen workers in the employer's service.

Furthermore, for the referring judge, multiple flaws in the dismissal have been ascertained, which do not integrate hypotheses of nullity, but are nonetheless characterized by profiles of significant gravity, concerning, in particular, the failure to discharge the burden placed on the employer regarding the traceability of the contested fact to the former employee and the defect of prior disciplinary charges.

Since neither full nor "mitigated" reinstatement under Article 18, fourth paragraph, of the Workers' Statute can be resorted to (admissible only in the presence of "above-threshold" employers), the referring judge considers that the applicable indemnity regime is that dictated by Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966, the constitutional legitimacy of which, however, he doubts.

13.– Regarding relevance, considering the gravity of the flaws in the dismissal act and the subjective conditions of the party, the court a quo deems it necessary «to intervene with a dissuasive, deterrent and adequate sanction», consisting of an order to pay a high indemnity, «in any event certainly higher than the very limited maximum ceiling» of six months. The latter, in the concrete case, would not be surmountable due to the lack of the occupational requirement provided by the final period of the challenged provision (the overall employment of more than fifteen workers) for the purpose of a potential increase up to fourteen months.

14.– Regarding non-manifest unfoundedness, the court a quo challenges Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 to the extent that it not only provides «a narrowed range (from 2.5 to 6 months)», but also fixes a maximum limit of the compensatory indemnity considered inadequate with respect to the multiple invoked parameters.

More specifically, according to the referring judge, the doubts regarding constitutional legitimacy move «in two directions», articulating themselves across different profiles.

14.1.– In a first direction, Articles 3 (first and second paragraphs) and 41 (second paragraph) of the Constitution would be infringed.

14.1.1.– Under a first aspect, in comparing the safeguards provided in favor of workers depending on whether or not the employer reaches the size thresholds referred to in Article 18 of the Workers' Statute, there would be an unjustified disparity in treatment between the two categories of employees, with an unreasonably detrimental protection being reserved for those of "sub-threshold" enterprises against dismissal flaws of identical – or at least comparable – gravity.

14.1.2.– Under a second aspect, internal entirely to "sub-threshold" enterprises, the challenged provision would not allow protection to be differentiated according to the gravity of the flaws vitiating the dismissal act.

This would prevent a «real personalization» of the compensation in relation to the circumstances of the specific case, bringing into play a «standardized and so reduced protection» as to prove unsuitable for regulating events «producing unequal damages».

Furthermore, «such a limited range» would not allow for the fulfillment of the criteria of adequacy and congruity of the compensation, nor would it guarantee «the necessary deterrent scope» of compensatory protection.

In this way, human liberty and dignity, safeguarded by Article 41, second paragraph, of the Constitution «even within small enterprises and not only in hypotheses of large-scale employers», would also be infringed.

Violations would likewise occur regarding: Article 4, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which, in recognizing the right to work for all citizens, concurrently provides for the Republic's commitment to promote conditions that render this right effective; Article 35, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which, by protecting labor in all its forms and applications, renders «the existence of a justifying reason underlying termination necessary»; Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 24 of the ESC, which, especially in cases removed from reinstatement protection, mandates the «necessary adequacy of compensatory remedies».

The indicated violations would be even more evident when, as in the present case, due to the lack of the necessary dimensional requirement (the employment of at least fifteen employees overall), the potential increase in the indemnity provided by the final period of the same Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966, in the presence of a certain work seniority, is not applicable.

14.2.– The challenges also proceed in a second direction, inasmuch as the different treatment «reserved for old and new hires» in smaller enterprises would infringe Article 3 (first and second paragraphs) of the Constitution, under the profiles of equality and reasonableness.

15.– On the basis of these arguments, the referring judge asks this Court to replace the current maximum amount of six months, set by the challenged provision, with a new limit equal to twelve months of the overall de facto remuneration. In the court a quo's perspective, this limit should be reached by applying the "halving" mechanism referred to in Article 9 of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015 to the upper extreme – equal to twenty-four months – of the compensatory range that Article 18, fifth paragraph, of the Workers' Statute reserves for employees of "above-threshold" employers hired before 7 March 2015.

16.– This having been premised, without detailing the regulatory evolution of the protection of workers against unlawful individual dismissals, already summarized several times in multiple decisions of this Court (among the most recent, Judgments No. 129, No. 128, No. 44, No. 22, and No. 7 of 2024), to which reference may be made, it is sufficient here to recall Judgments No. 13 and No. 12 of 2025. These rulings, in fact, recalled that, for a long time, the remedies provided by the legal system translated into two forms of guarantee. The first, in the case of "above-threshold" employers (i.e., with more than fifteen employees – five for agricultural entrepreneurs – employed in each production unit or in any event within the same municipality, or more than sixty overall), was represented by the so-called reinstatement (or "real") protection under Article 18 of the Workers' Statute, centered essentially on an order for the reinstatement of the worker in the previously occupied position. The second, in the case of "sub-threshold" employers, was instead represented, barring specific exceptions, by the so-called compensatory (also defined as "mandatory") protection under the here-challenged Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966, consisting of an order for the re-engagement of the employee or, alternatively, the payment in their favor of an indemnity expressly defined by law as aimed at «compensating the damage».

Article 18 of the Workers' Statute was subsequently deeply modified by Article 1, paragraph 42, of Law No. 92 of 28 June 2012 (Provisions concerning labor market reform in a growth perspective), which reserved reinstatement protection to hypotheses of greater gravity: "full" protection in the case of discriminatory or null dismissal; "mitigated" protection in the case of dismissal based on a "non-existent fact". The same reform then also reconfigured compensatory protection, defining it to a greater or lesser extent depending on the flaws in the dismissal act.

Subsequently, Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015 – for the purpose of «favoring entry into the labor world of "new hires", accentuating their exit flexibility with the recognition of predetermined compensatory-monetary protection and, therefore, lightening the consequences of an unlawful dismissal» (Judgment No. 129 of 2024) – introduced the open-ended employment contract with progressive protections and dictated organic discipline regarding the consequences of unlawful dismissals served by both "above-threshold" and "sub-threshold" employers to workers hired from 7 March 2015 onwards.

In confirming the fragmentation of protections introduced by Law No. 92 of 2012 according to the gravity of the detected flaw, the 2015 legislature nevertheless configured regulations that reduce compensatory protection and further limit reinstatement protection.

For what specifically concerns us here, the indemnity regime for "new hires" was redesigned in both its "strong" and "weak" measures (respectively, by Articles 3, paragraph 1, and 4 of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015), through the provision of amounts due between a minimum and a maximum.

Relative to these amounts, "halving" was introduced in the case of "sub-threshold" enterprises, in favor of which a maximum ceiling equal to six months of remuneration was in any case originally provided (Article 9).

Such «retreat of guarantees in favor of exit flexibility» (Judgment No. 12 of 2025) was subsequently mitigated, regarding specific profiles, by several rulings of this Court.

In particular, the due compensatory protection was affected by Judgments No. 194 of 2018 and No. 150 of 2020, which, regardless of the employer's size requirements, eliminated the automatic calculation of compensation – originally linked solely to service seniority – provided for dismissals subject to Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015.

Subsequently, Judgment No. 118 of 2025 – following up on the warning contained in Judgment No. 183 of 2022, which, in declaring the inadmissibility of the questions raised at the time, had signaled the intolerability of a further continuation of legislative inertia – declared the constitutional illegitimacy of the aforementioned Article 9, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015, limited to the words «and may in no case exceed the limit of six months», thereby eliminating, with regard to small enterprises, the ceiling imposed on compensation due to workers hired after 7 March 2015.

We shall return to this last decision later (infra, point 21), since the referring judge relies precisely on the principles expressed therein to motivate the intervention requested of this Court today.

17.– From the brief overview conducted in the preceding point, the current coexistence within the legal system of two regulations concerning the consequences of unlawful dismissals in enterprises that do not reach the size threshold fixed by Article 18 of the Workers' Statute emerges.

For employees hired after 7 March 2015, the reference discipline is dictated by Article 9 of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015, as affected by the cited Judgment No. 118 of 2025.

For employees hired prior to that date, the regime remains that provided by Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966, challenged herein.

For these latter workers – without prejudice to the "full" reinstatement protection provided, independently of the size requirement, by the first two paragraphs of Article 18 of the Workers' Statute reformed in 2012 for discriminatory, verbal, or otherwise null dismissals – the employer, alternatively to re-engagement within three days, may choose to pay an indemnity determined in an «amount comprised between a minimum of 2.5 and a maximum of 6 months of the last overall de facto remuneration».

Within this range, the system designed by Law No. 604 of 1966 does not provide for a gradation of monetary protection in relation to the type and gravity of the flaw in the dismissal act, but contemplates criteria to guide the judge in determining, in concrete terms, the amount of the indemnity within the indicated interval.

In particular, still according to the aforementioned Article 8, regard must be had «to the number of employees employed, the size of the enterprise, the seniority of service of the worker, and the conduct and conditions of the parties». To this must be added that Article 30, paragraph 3, second period, of Law No. 183 of 4 November 2010 (Delegations to the Government regarding strenuous labor, reorganization of entities, leaves, absences and permits, social safety nets, employment services, employment incentives, apprenticeship, female employment, as well as measures against undeclared work and provisions on public labor and labor disputes), provides that «[i]n defining the consequences to be connected to dismissal pursuant to Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 15 July 1966, and subsequent amendments, the judge shall equally take into account elements and parameters fixed by the aforementioned contracts [id est: collective labor agreements stipulated by comparatively most representative trade unions or individual labor contracts where stipulated with the assistance and consultancy provided in the first period] and in any circumstances considers the dimensions and conditions of the activity carried out by the employer, the situation of the local labor market, the seniority and conditions of the worker, as well as the conduct of the parties even prior to dismissal».

Finally, the final period of Article 8 under examination provides for the possibility of increasing the maximum measure of the indemnity «up to 10 months for the worker with seniority exceeding ten years and up to 14 months for the worker with seniority exceeding twenty years, if employed by an employer who occupies more than fifteen workers».

This latter size requirement is to be understood as referring to employment considered overall (and not within the single production unit), but within the limit of sixty units which would determine the operability of "real" protection.

18.– The challenges advanced today against Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 mirror those moved, in the proceedings concluded with Judgment No. 118 of 2025, against Article 9, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015, with the addition of the one centered on the unjustified different treatment «reserved for old and new hires» in smaller enterprises.

Now as then, it can be stated that the grievances, even if formulated with reference to different parameters, present a common core that allows for a unitary examination as profiles of a single issue, synthesizable «in the asserted unreasonable limitation of compensatory protection – provided for unlawful dismissals served by "sub-threshold" employers – which infringes the worker's right to adequate compensation to defend dignity and liberty» (Judgment No. 118 of 2025).

19.– Coming to the merits, the question is well-founded with reference to all indicated parameters.

20.– It is necessary, first of all, to recall that Judgment No. 194 of 2018 laid down a series of general principles regarding compensatory protection, to be recognized, regardless of the employer's size requirement, to the worker served with an unlawful dismissal.

Such dismissal, «even if effective, inasmuch as it is capable of terminating the employment relationship, constitutes nonetheless an unlawful act, having been adopted in violation of the pre-existing, unmodified mandatory rule according to which "the dismissal of the worker cannot take place except for just cause pursuant to Article 2119 of the Civil Code or for justified reason" (Article 1 of Law No. 604 of 1966)».

The monetary protection to be attributed to the worker must be such as to allow the judge to operate a real «personalization of the damage suffered by the worker», since compliance with the principle of equality safeguarded by Article 3 of the Constitution requires avoiding that situations which may well be different are treated in an unjustifiably homogeneous manner.

It is then necessary to ensure «the adequacy of compensation», so that it may respond «to its primary reparatory-compensatory function for the damage suffered by the worker» and constitute a congruous «redress of the concrete prejudice suffered» due to the unlawful dismissal.

Finally, «adequate deterrence of the employer from unfairly dismissing» must be guaranteed, because such conduct compromises «the balance of obligations undertaken in the contract».

The objective to be pursued, in fact, is the achievement of a balanced «composition of the interests at stake: the freedom of enterprise organization on the one hand and the protection of the unfairly dismissed worker on the other».

21.– The principles illustrated above have been constantly applied in subsequent constitutional case law.

For what specifically concerns us here, they have also found fertile ground in the field of dismissal unlawfully served upon employees of small enterprises, hired on a date subsequent to 7 March 2015 and therefore subject to the regime of the employment contract "with progressive protections".

In particular, Judgment No. 118 of 2025, to which today's referral order makes constant reference, affected Article 9, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015.

The latter provided, in addition to the "halving" of the amount of indemnities recognized to workers employed by "above-threshold" enterprises (between a minimum and maximum amount, varying in function of the gravity of the flaws in the dismissal act), also an insurmountable ceiling equal to the amount of six months.

In the face of the inertia demonstrated by the legislature following the infringement of the invoked constitutional parameters already ascertained by Judgment No. 183 of 2022, this Court, with the cited Judgment No. 118 of 2025, declared the constitutional illegitimacy of Article 9, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015, limited to the words «and may in no case exceed the limit of six months».

To arrive at this decision, it was highlighted that, even «in the peculiar context of small organizational realities», the requirement «for predictability and cost containment», while it may allow for a "moderation" of the redress due to the worker «in the presence of an unlawful dismissal that the legal system [...] qualifies in any event as unlawful», certainly does not authorize its substantial sacrifice.

Consequently, the imposition of a ceiling established at six reference months for the calculation of severance pay, which is insurmountable even in the presence of dismissals tainted by the most serious forms of illegitimacy, was considered conflicting with the constitutional principles illustrated above, «giving rise to monetary protection incompatible with the necessary "personalization of the damage suffered by the worker" (Judgment No. 194 of 2018)».

22.– This having been premised, Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 replicates all the flaws of constitutional legitimacy that Judgment No. 118 of 2025 found in the indemnity ceiling of analogous measure under Article 9, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015.

A range between 2.5 and six months – similarly to the substantially analogous one indicated as a paradigmatic example by Judgment No. 118 of 2025 («from three to six months in the case of unlawful dismissals referred to in Article 3, paragraph 1», of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015) – «excessively compresses the amount of the indemnity», preventing a real personalization of the damage suffered by the worker, «even in the presence of dismissals tainted by the most serious forms of illegitimacy»; as well as being characterized «like a lump-sum and standardized statutory liquidation», as such «unsuitable for reflecting the specificity of the concrete case and therefore for constituting a redress of the prejudice suffered by the worker, adequate to guarantee their dignity, in compliance with the principle of equality»; it proves ineffective with respect to the necessary deterrent function aimed at dissuading the employer from reiterating the unlawful act.

Furthermore, such a meager interval deprives the application of the criteria provided by Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 itself of real practical significance for the purposes of the necessary personalization of the reparatory-compensatory response for the damage suffered by the unfairly dismissed worker.

Nor can a further profile, correctly highlighted by today's referring judge, be overlooked.

As a result of Judgment No. 118 of 2025, employees hired by "sub-threshold" employers after 7 March 2015 are now tendentially recognized a quantitatively higher compensatory protection compared to workers hired in "small enterprises" on a prior date.

This occurs, for example, with reference to the case – disciplined by the combined provisions of Articles 3, paragraph 1, and 9, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015 – of dismissal for which the extremes of justified reason (objective or subjective) or just cause do not subsist, given that the possibility is now provided of determining the indemnity ranging between a minimum of three and a maximum of eighteen months.

It is certainly true that, according to constant constitutional case law, «a differentiated treatment applied to the same category of subjects, but at different moments in time, does not in itself conflict with the principle of equality, since the flow of time constitutes a valid element of diversification of legal situations» (orders No. 25 of 2012 and No. 224 of 2011; in the same sense, Judgments No. 140 and No. 41 of 2026, No. 254 of 2014; orders No. 61 of 2010, No. 170 of 2009, No. 212, and No. 77 of 2008).

However, that same case law has affirmed that the legislature's discretion in delimiting the temporal sphere of application of rules must in any event be exercised «in compliance with the canon of reasonableness» (again, Judgment No. 41 of 2026; in the same sense, Judgments No. 129, No. 7, and No. 6 of 2024).

On the basis of these principles, indeed, this Court (Judgment No. 194 of 2018) in the past held that the temporal modulation of the application of Legislative Decree No. 23 of 2015 – which had at the time marked a «retreat of guarantees in favor of exit flexibility» (Judgment No. 12 of 2025) – had respected the canon of reasonableness, «in light of the justifying reason [...] constituted by the "purpose", declaredly pursued by the legislature, "of strengthening opportunities for entering the labor market by those seeking employment" (alinea of Article 1, paragraph 7, of Law No. 183 of 2014)».

With the aforementioned reversal of perspective deriving from Judgment No. 118 of 2025, which has tendentially strengthened the monetary protection due to "new hires" in "sub-threshold" enterprises, this justification has lost the greater part of its rational foundation, also in light of the notorious – and therefore accurately highlighted by the referring judge – «greater difficulty of job replacement for old hires, with a consequent tendentially greater impact of the damage».

23.– Once the infringement of the invoked constitutional parameters has been ascertained, the pathway to overcome it must be identified.

In this regard, «the *petitum* of the referral order can clarify the content of the challenges, but does not entail the adoption of a bound solution; this Court, in fact, "when it deems the questions well-founded, remains free to identify the ruling most suitable for the *reductio ad legitimitatem* of the challenged provision" (Judgments No. 146 and No. 53 of 2025 and No. 46 of 2024)» (Judgment No. 85 of 2026; in the same sense, Judgments No. 140, No. 103, No. 66, No. 51, and No. 30 of 2026).

Now, in the scheme proposed by the court a quo, upon careful consideration, resort is not asked to «precise points of reference [...] already existing» (Judgment No. 236 of 2016), but rather to create a new precept, through a combination of segments from different disciplines. Such a *petitum* is therefore not properly classifiable within the perimeter of remedies deducible from the system, to which constitutional case law resorts whenever it is possible to trace a solution suitable for remedying the ascertained violations, provided, however, that it is already present in the legal system.

Rather, in the present case as well – as already on the occasion of Judgment No. 118 of 2025 – it is entirely possible to operate a more limited intervention, of a purely abulatory nature, nonetheless sufficient to eliminate the ascertained infringement.

23.1.– In this regard, it is useful to recall that the final period of Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 already provides for the possibility of increasing the maximum measure of the indemnity «up to 10 months for the worker with seniority exceeding ten years and up to 14 months for the worker with seniority exceeding twenty years, if employed by an employer who occupies more than fifteen workers».

This mechanism is therefore subject to two requirements, which, moreover, must occur jointly (among recent cases, Court of Cassation, Labor Section, Order No. 13741 of 22 May 2025): the first is of a dimensional nature, as there must be more than fifteen (and up to sixty) workers in the employer's service; the second requires a work seniority exceeding ten or twenty years, to access the potential increase up to ten or fourteen months, respectively.

Since the application scope of the discipline under examination – to be considered, evidently, "expiring" – is limited to employees hired prior to 7 March 2015, a work seniority of at least ten years has by now been acquired by all workers subject to the regime in question, for whom that requirement of twenty-year seniority which allows aspiration to an indemnity of up to fourteen months of overall de facto remuneration (and which the applicant in the main proceedings, moreover, already possesses) will progressively become free of obstructive relevance.

The real obstacle continuing to stand in the way of the exercise of the judge's discretion within a broader range is, therefore, constituted by the size requirement provided by the final clause of the scrutinized Article 8.

24.– The *reductio ad legitimitatem* of the challenged provision can be operated precisely by eliminating the regulatory fragment indicated last: «, if employed by an employer who occupies more than fifteen workers».

The employment limit contemplated therein, in fact, while it may have contributed to rationalizing the system during the period when different size criteria dictated by Law No. 604 of 1966 and the Workers' Statute from a few years later coexisted with the risk of overlapping, has in truth lost the greater part of its relevance in the aftermath of Law No. 108 of 11 May 1990 (Discipline of individual dismissals). This is because the latter enacted a significant amendment of the entire discipline of unlawful dismissals: on the one hand, redefining, with Article 1, paragraph 1, the scope of application of "real" protection under Article 18 of the Workers' Statute; on the other hand, respectively, with Articles 2, paragraph 3, and 6, paragraph 2, modifying the challenged provision and, concurrently, repealing Article 11 of Law No. 604 of 1966, which, with respect to employers with fewer than thirty-five employees, excluded the application of "mandatory" protection at the outset. This circumstance had rendered the just-mentioned protection invocable even by workers employed in enterprises of smaller dimensions.

Such generalization of monetary protection in favor of all workers employed by "sub-threshold" enterprises would remain, however, ineffective, were its effectiveness not also ensured: effectiveness which mandates compliance with the criteria of personalization of the damage produced, adequacy of the relative redress, and real deterrent efficacy of the latter, without allowing further distinctions based exclusively on the size of the enterprise, which remains "sub-threshold".

The elimination of the sole remaining real obstacle to the possibility of giving implementation to the principles indicated above – allowing the expansion – in favor of all "old hires" in smaller enterprises – of the range within which the judge's discretion may roam, therefore responds to the same logic underlying the choice already made by Law No. 108 of 1990.

The latter discretion will in any case be guided by the criteria dictated by Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966, among which, moreover, the «number of employees employed» will continue to have relevance, though no longer in terms of obstructing access at least to the first step of the indemnity increase.

Finally, it does not conflict with the invoked parameters to condition the broader increase up to fourteen months on the possession of work seniority of at least twenty years. It is true that this Court has considered it intolerable, in light of the principles invoked again today by the referring judge, to pre-establish entirely (and rigidly) the *quantum* of the indemnity in relation to the single parameter of service seniority (again, Judgment No. 194 of 2018). However, that same case law (point 11 of Considerations in Law) – precisely indicating the provision scrutinized here as an example – did not at all exclude that work seniority may be considered a reasonable parameter, not only to guide, provided it is in concurrence with others, the compensatory response within a pre-established interval, but also «to further broaden the judge's discretion», i.e., to allow access to an even more divergent compensatory range.

25.– The constitutional illegitimacy of Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 1966 must therefore be declared, limited to the words «, if employed by an employer who occupies more than fifteen workers».

FOR THESE REASONS

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

Declares the constitutional illegitimacy of Article 8 of Law No. 604 of 15 July 1966 (Rules on individual dismissals), limited to the words «, if employed by an employer who occupies more than fifteen workers».

Decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on 6 July 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Rapporteur

Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry

Filed in the Registry on 22 October 2026

The anonymized version conforms in text to the original