The Paris Prud'hommes Council, made up of around 800 advisers, recorded in 2020, 10,970 referrals to the merits with a very high appeal rate, making it a much sought-after court, whose functioning is nevertheless often called into question. cause, deemed too slow, marginalized and inefficient.

It is therefore interesting to review the key figures for 2020 of the Paris Labor Council in terms of the development of its activity, in order to better understand its general functioning.

1) Referrals to the merits: the management section is the most requested

The year of 2020 was placed under the yoke of the Covid-19 pandemic, which undeniably influenced the evolution of the number of referrals.

There has been a slight drop in the number of referrals to the Paris Labor Council.

Indeed, while in 2016 there were more than 12,835 referrals to the bottom, in 2020 there were only 9,967 referrals, or more than 2,500 fewer referrals in four years.

More precisely, there must be 1,553 fewer referrals between 2019 and 2020, from the Paris Labor Council, considered in all its sections.

This result, which takes into account referrals from the trade, industry, supervision, agriculture and various activities section, is also verified in each of these sections cited.

Because if on average it was around 10,970 referrals that required justice from the labor tribunal between 2016 and 2020, only 9,967 substantive referrals were counted in 2020.

Does this drop in referral reflect a lack of confidence in the prudential institution? Or is it not just the effect of his sharp criticisms? Isn't it the effect of its own inadequacy?

And if the number of referrals has decreased, has another method of settling disputes between employee and employer been favored? Or has the reality of these conflicts simply diminished?

2) Completed cases on the merits

From now on, it is necessary to question the efficiency and the credibility of the justice rendered by the Paris Labor Court, according to the criterion of the cases concluded on the merits, that is to say of the cases which do not 'were not the subject of an appeal before the court of appeal to see the judgment be more verified than amended.

First, 8,629 cases were concluded on the merits, while 1,338 were appealed.

However, if this figure seems reasonable, the remarks must be qualified.

Because while there has been a decrease in referrals to the Paris Labor Council between 2016 and 2020, it is also noted in a completely parallel manner, a higher number of cases completed in 2016 and in 2019.

In fact, in 2016, 17,709 cases were finalized by the Council, and 11,444 in 2019, against only 8,629 in 2020.

Likewise, out of an average of 13,321 cases completed on the merits between 2016 and 2020, it is then possible to highlight a considerable gap specific to the year 2020 of more than 4,000 unfinished cases on the merits.

This slowdown in Parisian prudential justice can be largely explained by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a strong impact on the functioning of justice in general.

3) Referrals

As for summary proceedings, that is to say the procedures that accompany certain cases which call for urgent judgment by the employment tribunal advisers, no major change is noted between 2019 and 2020, or even between 2016. and 2020.

Indeed, while in 2019 the Paris Labor Council received 1,654 summary proceedings and completed 1,643, i.e. 11 summary proceedings still awaiting a decision, this is only 3 more in 2020.

That is to say that in 2020, out of 1319 referrals for summary proceedings, 1306 obtained a decision, while compared to 2016 the Paris Council completed more summary proceedings than it received.

However, in terms of referrals, the year 2020 is part of a general and continuous trend.

4) Evolution of the business in stock: the framing section is the most seized

At the end of 2020, the Paris Labor Council had 16,117 cases in stock, that is to say pending judgment, of which 7,324 were the responsibility of the Management section.

We must see here the too often denounced slowness of procedural delays specific to the Paris Labor Council, which penalizes the parties, putting them in an uncomfortable and agonizing situation of waiting.

However, it is only in the Management section (the most popular) that the cases in stock have exploded, while in the other sections, the number of cases in stock has gradually declined since 2016.

5) Evolution of procedural delays

Due to the statistics communicated on the evolution of cases in stock, it is necessary to deduce the figures concerning the evolution of procedural delays between 2016 and 2020, in order to finally obtain a judgment.

Indeed, a difference between the average age of the stock of cases to be completed and the average duration of completed cases is to be noted in a very particular way: because if the first was around 15.3 months, the second was 20, 5 months in 2020.

And if compared to the year of 2016, 2020 stands out with shorter procedural delays, 2020 communicates less convincing results compared to the performance in terms of efficiency of the Paris Labor Council of 2019: the average duration of completed cases increased by 3.3 months, to finally represent 20.5 months in total, although the average duration of cases in stock in progress decreased (from 15.8 to 15.3 months from 2019 to 2020) .

6) Analysis of the extinction modes of the instance by section

In the supervision section, out of 2,857 cases, 1,493 were substantive judgments while 1,035 concerned other various purposes and 329 were conciliations.

In the trade section, the Paris Labor Council met the most, with 3,299 bodies in total.

Of these 3,299 proceedings, 2,257 were devoted to substantive judgments, 838 to other purposes and finally, 195 to conciliations.

These figures represent roughly the same proportions for the two most requested chambers of the Labor Court, since more generally, across all sections, 59% of hearings corresponded to substantive judgments.

Source: French Ministry of Justice (cf PJ)

Frédéric CHHUM, Avocat à la Cour et Membre du Conseil de l’ordre des avocats de Paris (mandat 2019-2021)

Sarah BOUSCHBACHER
 

CHHUM AVOCATS (Paris, Nantes, Lille)
e-mail : chhum@chhum-avocats.com
www.chhum-avocats.fr
https://www.instagram.com/fredericchhum/?hl=fr
.Paris: 34 rue Petrelle 75009 Paris tel: 0142560300
.Nantes: 41, Quai de la Fosse 44000 Nantes tel: 0228442644
.Lille: 25, rue Gounod 59000 Lille tel: 0320135083