Member Article

Since year 2008 Nicaragua has been modernizing the administration of labor justice. The Ministry of Labor started the modernization with the implementation of an oral process for the fulfillment of certain formalities required before such institution, such as termination of employment contracts for justified cause, collective suspensions and business closures. The implementation of this oral process has been successful because it reduces and simplifies processes.

In the judicial field, the National Labor Court of Appeals was established in year 2011 and has national jurisdiction to hear as the second and final instance all the individual and collective disputes of legal matters which arise from the employment relationship between employers and workers. The National Labor Court of Appeals was established to provide legal certainty to employers and workers; it is a specialized labor court that will unify the jurisprudence on this matter. Before its creation the labor jurisprudence was divided into different courts of the country; the authorities in charge of labor decisions were the civil courts of appeals of various jurisdictions.

In this line of modernization, in November of 2012 a new Code of Labor and Social Security was approved. It will transform the labor written process into an eminently oral process, with a single hearing for the presentation of the evidence offered by the parties. This oral process will reduce the time of the trial, which currently takes 2 or 3 years to 6 months, saving time and resources for the Authorities, workers and employers.