By decision No. 5739 of 3 March 2020, the Italian Supreme Court gets back to dealing with the correct identification of the labour court having territorial jurisdiction to adjudicate on maritime labour disputes.
The decision gives us the opportunity to outline the fundamental criteria on the basis of which the territorial jurisdiction of courts in connection with labour disputes involving seafarers must be determined.
Today, it is generally accepted that – in the hierarchy of Italian legal sources – maritime labour law is lex specialis (see Article 1 of the Italian Navigation Code), thus overriding the provisions having a general nature (lex generalis). In the light of such principle, in the field of maritime labour law, general law provisions may therefore apply only if (a) the specific matter is not regulated by maritime labour law and (b) if the gap in maritime labour law cannot be filled by other provisions of special law.
The lex specialis principle is also expressly confirmed in the above-mentioned decision of the Italian Supreme Court, according to which maritime labour law “has always been marked by specific peculiarities compared to the rules generally applicable to standard labour relationships”.
In light of the above principle, not only the material discipline of maritime labour law is significantly different from ordinary labour law, but special procedural rules also apply in order to determine the territorial jurisdiction of the court in charge of maritime labour disputes.
Article 603 of the Italian Navigation Code sets forth specific connection criteria for the identification of the court that is territorially competent to adjudicate on maritime labour disputes involving seafarers.
This is also expressly confirmed in the above-mentioned decision of the Supreme Court, in which – having regard to previous decisions of the Joint Divisions of the Supreme Court (No. 17443/2014 and No. 5944/1982) – it is stated as follows: “in individual maritime labour law disputes … the territorial jurisdiction of the court shall be identified on the basis of the connection criteria provided for by Article 603 of the Navigation Code”.
This provision of the Navigation Code is still the fundamental rule for the identification of the territorially competent court, although – by decision No. 29/1976 – the Constitutional Court held Article 603 of the Navigation Code to be partially unconstitutional. As a matter of fact, the decision of the Constitutional Court only relates to the harbour master’s jurisdiction, without affecting the criteria for identification of the competent court territorial jurisdiction.
Moreover, such criteria were not overruled or repealed by Law No. 533/1973 (which introduced new procedural rules for labour proceedings and set out new criteria for identification of the territorial jurisdiction of courts, amending Article 413, paragraphs 2 et seq., of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure). Indeed, in the light of the lex specialis principle, the new statutory provisions do not apply to maritime labour relationships.
Hence, the criteria provided by Article 603 of the Navigation Code are still in force.
That being said, it is worth briefly outlining the criteria set out in Article 603 of the Italian Navigation Code, which provide for two alternative competent courts:
(a) the court of the place where the maritime labour relationship was established, performed or terminated and
(b) the court of the district in which the vessel was registered.
With regard to the first of the two territorially competent courts, the Supreme Court has further specified that the court of the place where the relationship was terminated must be identified in the court competent for the place in which the seafarer was supposed to be at the time when the relationship ceased. This is particularly relevant for the periods between disembarkation and the subsequent reemployment, during which such place can be identified in the domicile of the seafarer, i.e. the place where any shipowner’s communication regarding the continuation of the employment should be addressed (see decision of the Supreme Court No. 5944 dated 11 November 1982).
In that specific case, the first of the alternative territorially competent courts is therefore the court of the place of the domicile of the seafarer.
Judgment No. 5739 of the Italian Supreme Court of 3 March 2020 therefore confirms that – concerning claims regarding maritime labour relationships – the standard criteria for identification of the territorially competent court (under Article 413 of the Code of Civil Procedure) do not apply, as reference should be made to the special criteria under Article 603 of the Navigation Code, which provide for two territorially competent courts: (a) the court of the place in which the maritime labour relationship was established, performed or ceased, or (b) the court competent for the district in which the vessel was registered.
