The termination of an employment contract is one of the most important issues in labour law legislation. The focus is primarily on the termination of an employment contract at the initiative of the employer, without the employee. The mechanism of extraordinary termination of an employment contract enables the employee to immediately terminate the employment contract and thus also terminate the employment relationship in the event of serious breaches of obligations by the employer, by a unilateral declaration of will.

The law exhaustively lists serious breaches of the employer’s obligations, which constitute the reason for an extraordinary termination of the employee’s employment contract. An employee may only file for an extraordinary termination of an employment contract if there is a statutory reason and if, taking into account all the circumstances and interests, it is not possible to continue the employment relationship until the expiration of the notice period or the period for which the employment contract was concluded.

The Employment Relationships Act (ZDR-1) regulates the mechanism of extraordinary termination in three articles, namely in Article 109, which lays down general rules, in Article 110, which regulates extraordinary termination by the employer, and in Article 111, which regulates extraordinary termination by the employee. In addition to the aforementioned provisions, in the case of extraordinary termination of an employment contract, it is necessary to take into account some general provisions within the framework of the termination of an employment contract (Article 80 – Article 87).

An extraordinary termination of an employment contract is a mechanism through which one party may, on the basis of a unilateral statement, cause the termination of an employment contract and thus of the employment relationship. It is envisaged in certain exceptional cases, when serious violations are caused by one party, as a result of which the other party may terminate the employment contract with immediate effect. The extraordinary termination may be tendered by both the employee and the employer.

The peculiarity of an extraordinary termination of an employment contract is that this termination has no notice period. Such regulation is due to the fact that extraordinary termination is a case where one party seriously violates the rights of the other party, meaning that their mutual relationship is ruined to such an extent that the employment relationship can no longer continue until the expiration of the notice period.

The extraordinary termination of the employee or the employer must be tendered in writing (paragraph 1 of Article 87 of the ZDR-1). The rule on written termination applies absolutely and has no exceptions. Regarding the content of both regular and extraordinary termination of an employment contract, the law only stipulates the duty to explain the extraordinary termination of the employment contract for the employer. However, since certain rights and obligations of the employee are related to the correctness and timeliness of the extraordinary termination, the employee should also duly justify their decision, although the law does not explicitly provide for this. Otherwise, it will be considered that the employee has tendered a regular termination of their employment contract, as a result of which they will not be entitled to the rights set out in Article 111 of the ZDR-1.

Since extraordinary termination should only be used in extreme circumstances, both the employee and the employer may, in accordance with paragraph 3 of Article 83 of the ZDR-1, only submit it for the reasons exhaustively listed in Article 110 of the ZDR-1 for the extraordinary termination of an employment contract by the employer and in Article 111 of the ZDR-1 for the extraordinary termination of an employment contract by the employee. The employee is also entitled to severance pay or possible compensation. After the termination of an employment contract, they can register at the Employment Office of the Republic of Slovenia and start receiving unemployment benefits.

However, extraordinary termination is only envisaged in the event of serious breaches. Before the employee can tender an extraordinary termination to the employer, they must report the violation. Prior to the extraordinary termination of an employment contract, the employee must inform the employer in writing and request the elimination of violations. The employee must also submit a written report of the violation to the labour inspectorate. If the employer does not remedy the violation within 3 working days of the receipt of the reminder, the employee may file for an extraordinary termination of employment within a further period of 30 days.

Additional reasons for an extraordinary termination of the employment contract must not be additionally determined by either the employer or the employee (e.g. in the collective agreement or in the employment contract). As follows from Article 87 of the Employment Relationship Act (the ZDR-1), which defines the content of the written termination, and from the position of the Supreme Court (judgement VIII 120/2009 of 24 January 2011 and judgement VIII Ips 86/2010 of 20 June 2011), the party who extraordinarily terminates the employment contract does not have to prove the condition of inability to continue the employment relationship in their written termination. However, said party must do so in court proceedings; otherwise, the extraordinary termination of the employment contract is considered illegal.

Courts also play an important role in the context of an extraordinary termination of an employment contract. In a possible dispute, the latter assesses the legality of the tendered extraordinary termination of the employee’s employment contract, while forming case law. With their views and explanations, they provide answers to the questions raised by the legislative regulation.

Within the scope of admissibility, two cases of invalidity of the termination of the employment contract are also specifically determined, which also relate to the extraordinary termination of the employment contract. The first case specifies the invalidity of the extraordinary (and regular) termination of the employment contract of either the employee or the employer, which is tendered for discriminatory reasons. The prohibition of discrimination is regulated by the ZDR–1 in Article 6. Although in this case, the law does not specify the kind of invalidity (voidness or voidability), taking into account the fact that the violation of the prohibition of discrimination constitutes a violation of the constitutional principle referred to in Article 14 of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia and the reasonable application of Article 86 of the OZ in connection with Article 13 of the ZDR–1, the concept of invalidity can be interpreted as voidness. In this case, the employee must exercise judicial protection within 30 days of the termination of their employment contract.