Dismissal after a request for Flemish training leave · Judgment 63/2026
Belgian Constitutional Court · 21 May 2026
An employee of Qplox Engineering asked for Flemish training leave and was dismissed. The Leuven Labour Court considered the worker entitled to the statutory protection payment because the employer could not show the dismissal was unrelated to the request. One question remained. Why was the payment three months’ remuneration when some other protections provided six?
What the constitutional judges decided
The court examined the particular statutory protection for paid educational leave. It held that the constitutional guarantees of equality and non-discrimination did not require this payment to match the amounts in the other dismissal schemes put before it. The three-month measure could stand.
What that meant for the worker
The worker retained the benefit of the Labour Court’s assessment that the dismissal attracted protection. The constitutional ruling gave Leuven no basis to double the statutory amount to six months on the proposed comparison. It answered the legal question referred to it. The individual payment dispute belonged to the Labour Court.
The evidence behind the claim
Two separate questions mattered: whether the dismissal was linked to the leave request and how much the applicable statute provided. Dated leave requests, the dismissal letter and the employer’s contemporaneous explanation are relevant to the first. Comparisons with payments under other laws address the second.
Read Constitutional Court judgment 63/2026
More decisions from Belgium · Explore the European Case Law Journal · Individual consultation times and fees
