With a very recent ruling published on 16 April 2024, the Court of Marsala Labor Section – in accordance with the majority orientation – recognized the appellant’s right to have his military service “not carried out under a school contract” assessed to the same extent as that performed consistently with the relationship, consequently condemning the Administration to rectify the appellant’s score (6 points) in the third-tier ATA rankings as well as in the teaching rankings.
The proceeding judge, fully sharing the arguments of the lawyer Giuseppina Gilda Ferrantello, referred to the art. 485, paragraph 7, of Legislative Decree 297/1994, which establishes that “the period of conscription or recall military service and the civil service replacing the conscription service is valid for all purposes”.
It found that the inequality in the evaluation of military service, established by Ministerial Decree 50/2021, is in conflict with higher-ranking legislation, citing, in support, the recent relevant jurisprudence of the Council of State and the Court of Cassation.
In essence, the last updated ministerial regulation of the ATA third band rankings, in limiting the full evaluation of military service to only the periods served during the appointment, conflicts with the art. 485 of Legislative Decree 297/1994, with art. 52 of the Constitution, where it establishes that the fulfillment of military service cannot jeopardize the citizen’s employment position and art. 2050 of Legislative Decree no. 66 of 2010, which provides for the evaluation of military service in public competitions.
Therefore – the Court clarified – military (and civil) service must be positively evaluated for career and access to roles in every field, regardless of whether it was carried out during an employment relationship or after having obtained the requirements necessary for registration in the rankings and this without any difference compared to the value attributed to services carried out in the civil sector at public bodies.
In essence, as established in the sentence, military service, even when not carried out in conjunction with a work assignment, must be considered in the same way as a service carried out during an assignment both for the ATA rankings and for those of teachers and therefore must be fully recognized with the relevant score, rather than with that inherent to the service carried out for another administration”.
Lawyer Giuseppina Gilda Ferrantello
