7 Termination of the employment contract Legal Review The question of termination of the employment contract is regulated by Article 47 and Article 48 of the Labour Code. Article 47 defines valid and invalid grounds for contract termination, while Article 48 legislates the rules and procedures thereof. They both follow the basic principles determined under the ILO Termination of Employment Convention, 1982(No. 158). The employer is obliged to give written notification to the employee thir­ty calendar days in advance and must pay at least one-month severance compensation within thirty calendar days, with the exception of cases where violation of employment duties constitutes a valid ground for dismissal. Alternatively, the employer is entitled to give a three-day prior written notification to the employee and pay at least two months of severance compensation within thirty calendar days. The Labour Code provides for an exhaustive list of valid grounds for dismissal which is mostly based on the grounds contained in Article 4 of the Convention No. 158 which reads that“the employment of a worker shall not be terminated unless there is a valid reason for such termination connected with the capacity or conduct of the worker or based on the op­erational requirements of the undertaking, establishment or service.” As such, in Article 47 the valid reasons for termination are expressed along three dimensions: 1) the operational requirements of the employer(e.g. economic circumstances, and/or technological or orga­nizational changes requiring downsizing; the initiation of liquidation proceedings against an employer who is a legal person); 2) the capacity of the worker(e.g. the incompatibility of an employee’s qualifications or professional skills with the position held/work to be performed by the employee; long-term incapacity for work); and 3) the conduct of the worker(e.g. vio­lation by an employee of his/her obligations under an individual employment agreement). However, there is an additional valid ground for contract termination listed in Article 47, which is not derived from the Convention No. 158. According to Article 47(1)(n) of the Labour Code, the grounds for terminating employment agreements also include[…]- other objec­tive circumstances justifying the termination of an employment agreement”. Within the 2020 Labour Law Reform, a new provision was introduced in the Labour Code, aiming to provide some additional guarantees related to Article 47(1)(n) of the Labour Code. Namely, the Labour Code now states that where an employment agreement is ter­minated on the ground of other objective circumstances justifying the termination of an 82