Classification of Types of Labour Law Compliance Controls in Current Labour Legislation

Introduction

The historical roots of labour law compliance monitoring are indicative of the importance of this legal institution, both for the labour law sector itself, given that it has accompanied its development since its earliest years, and for the role of the state and its responsibility in protecting labour rights.

The control of compliance with labour law is a generalised concept, given its importance for labour law, for the protection of the right to work and, in particular, for individual labour law institutes. This inevitably determines its diversity of types, which aims to give maximum completeness, respectively to meet the needs of different historical periods.

Control is a normative regulated activity and given the specific focus on compliance with the norms of labour legislation, its dependence on the specificity of the sources of this legal sector is predetermined. The Labour Code occupies a central place in contemporary labour law, which is also the main source of the normative regulation of state control. Chapter nineteen „Control of compliance with labour legislation and administrative liability for its violation“ contains the legal regulation, accordingly, the type diversity of control can be derived from it.

Systematics in types of control can be derived on the basis of various classification features.

First of all, the distinguishing criterion on the basis of which a classification of controls can be derived is the position occupied by the control bodies in relation to the controlled objects.

According to this criterion, control is divided into external and internal control. The legislator has followed this classification in the logical sequence of the texts in the LC.

First of all, in the logical order of the norms, the legislator places the regulation of the Executive Agency “General Labour Inspectorate”, which is contained in Article 399 of the Labour Code (Dimitrova, D., 2020a). This is a correct approach given the fact that this body is entrusted with “the overall control of compliance with labour legislation in all sectors and activities”. On the other hand, this also shows the importance of the General Labour Inspectorate in the overall system of bodies carrying out control activities for compliance with labour legislation.

From the norm of Article 399 of the Labour Code two types of control exercised by the Executive Agency “General Labour Inspectorate” can be deduced, namely:

• ➢

  General (overall control) - laid down in par. 1

• ➢

  Specialised - set out in paragraph 2 “specialised control activity on compliance with the legislation related to the performance of the civil service and the rights and obligations of the parties to the employment relationship” (Dimitrova, D., 2020a).

Central among the bodies of external control is the Executive Agency “General Labour Inspectorate” (Article 5, paragraph 2, item 1 of the Labour Inspection Act) (Dimitrova, D., 2019). It stands at the head of the control system of bodies and implements the powers granted to it through its local subdivisions - regional directorates of the Labour Inspectorate.

Secondly, the legislator derives, as a type of external control, which is regulated in Article 400 of the Labour Code. It is granted to other state bodies, beyond the one mentioned in the previous article, carry out general or specialized control of compliance with labour legislation by virtue of a law or an act of the Council of Ministers. This control is derived from the point of view of the “place” on the axis “controlling authority - controlled objects / branches or activities”. This control is mainly carried out for compliance with occupational health and safety standards as part of the regulations in the labour legislation. An example of such bodies are the fire protection authorities under Article 58 of the Ministry of the Interior Act.