LUCCA. He is one hundred percent civilly disabled, but no assessment has attested to his “absolute and permanent inability to work as a teacher”. It is the cornerstone on which the sentence of the Court of Lucca is based which certifies as illegitimate the dismissal of a precarious professor, with a very serious handicap, adopted by a city high school in October 2023. The Ministry of Education was also condemned to pay the monthly payments – from October 2023 to June 2024 – not received by the teacher.
After being ousted from the professorship, for which he had obtained the position until June 30, in the role of teacher of foreign languages and cultures in secondary schools, the teacher challenged the provision signed by the school director. And in the case before the judge Alfonsina Manfredini against the Ministry of Education demonstrated that that dismissal had been decided and implemented against the law. In his appeal, the professor had also claimed that he had suffered discriminatory treatment due to his disabled condition, but the judge excluded this “aggravating factor” in the provision which was considered incorrect.
The letter
It is October 7, 2023 when the teacher, originally from Campania, receives the letter from the school director. It reads: «Decrees towards Mr… serving at this institute as a secondary school teacher for the AA24 competition class – foreign languages and cultures in secondary schools, the termination of the employment relationship work due to absolute psychophysical unfitness for service”. A shock to which the professor responds by challenging the dismissal and also the exclusion from the GPS rankings for the province of Lucca and the institute. First pronouncement Already during the precautionary phase, last February the teacher was recognized as having the right to return to the rankings and that the dismissal was illegitimate «since it had not been proven that the professor had a permanent absolute psychophysical unfitness for service in the role of teacher. This is because the certification of the medical commission only attested that the appellant (also until September 2024/date of review) had a 100% (generic) incapacity for work with also difficulty walking independently without the help of a companion, since justify the provision of the accompanying allowance”.
He must return to the chair
The mistake made by the school director was to interpret the medical certifications incorrectly. The difference between (generic) work disability and the “permanent absolute psychophysical unfitness for service, of which there is no proof, not forgetting that also during the 2021-2022 school year (end of May 2022), as well as in previous years, the appellant had carried out continuous substitute roles until 30 June in higher education institutions and, furthermore, it appears from the medical commission report that also in this context he had demonstrated “good judgment and intellectual abilities”.
The judge
The judge writes that “there was no absolute and permanent inability to work as a teacher or in any case the ministry did not offer the relevant proof”. Hence the payment of back wages and reinstatement in the GPS rankings to obtain a new substitute assignment.
