Terminación de la relación laboral : aplicación del caso fortuito o fuerza mayor durante Estado de Emergencia Sanitaria por COVID-19 en Ecuador.

Abstract

With the Covid-19 pandemic declaration made by the World Health Organization (OMS) in February 2020, most countries imposed strong confinement measures, including the suspension of work, both public and private. Ecuador was not the exception and so the obstacles, in compliance with the provisions of the Executive Decree of the state of emergency and the ministerial agreements of the Ministry of Labor, reduced, modified and in most cases, suspended the working day. However, another employer sector, protected in the emergency situation and in use of number 6 of article 169 of the Labor Code, unilaterally decided to terminate the labor relations, justifying in an accommodative manner in the fortuitous event or force majeure. For all this situation, the President of the Republic violates the need to send an urgent economic bill, "Humanitarian Law", which, during the second debate, the National Assembly considered the inclusion of an interpretative provision that would explain how it should understand the article already mentioned. Here, as a whole, the regulations, scarce jurisprudence, comparative law and what is established by current Humanitarian law will be analyzed, regarding the cause of the fortuitous case or force majeure to terminate the employment relationship, determining that, in the in most cases, it was misapplied during the exception period due to the Covid-19 pandemic.