With Ministerial Order of 10 July 2020, the Procedures for the establishment of provincial and institute rankings for the assignment of the relevant substitutes for teaching and educational staff were initiated. Dr. CM submitted her application for inclusion in the second band for the competition classes A026, A037, A041, A047, A060. However, Dr. CM, despite having gained previous work experience in state schools after 2000, when submitting her application to participate, by pure mistake ticked the box called “Evaluation Art. 15 paragraph 4”, regarding the services performed in private schools before 2000, for which a halving of the score was provided.
Following this mere material error, the Regional School Office of Sicily – Territorial Area of the Province of Agrigento recognized Dr. CM, when publishing the relevant ranking, a halved score for the competition items for which she had submitted a specific application and in one case this score was even reset to zero. Having taken note of this circumstance, Dr. CM submitted a complaint to the school administration, by which she contested the halving and/or resetting of the score attributed to her. However, the School Office did not accept the aforementioned complaint. Therefore, considering the actions of the school administration to be illegitimate, Dr. CM, with the patronage of the lawyers Girolamo Rubino and Calogero Marino, filed an appeal before the Court of Agrigento, acting as a Labor Judge.
Lawyers Rubino and Marino argued in court that the conduct carried out by the school administration should have been considered manifestly detrimental to the general principles in the field of competitive examinations and to the rationale inherent in any procedure announced by a public administration, where the purpose of the procedures announced by the public administration is to recruit the most qualified and/or titled personnel, trying, where possible, to deduce the same titles in light of what was indicated and produced by the competitors.
In detail, the aforementioned lawyers also pointed out in court that in the case in question the so-called investigative assistance should be activated, since the documentation presented by the candidate left margins of uncertainty that could easily be overcome. Well, with a ruling dated 06.26.2024, sharing the defensive arguments supported by Lawyers Rubino and Marino, the Court of Agrigento accepted the appeal of Dr. CM, recognizing her the requested score, and ordering the Ministry of Education to pay the legal costs.
In particular, the Labor Judge of Agrigento observed that in this case there was a hypothesis of a material error in the compilation of the application, which could therefore be overcome by means of the so-called investigative assistance, invoked by the lawyers Rubino and Marino. Consequently, as a result of the superior ruling, Dr. CM will obtain a significant advancement of her position in the respective rankings of the GPS.
