Law No. 2013-1005 of November 12, 2013, authorizing the Government to simplify relations between the administration and citizens, amended Article 21 of Law No. 2000-321 of April 12, 2000, concerning the rights of citizens in their dealings with government agencies. While the law of April 12, 2000, stipulated that silence from an administration for more than two months generally constituted a rejection, the law of November 12, 2013, establishes the opposite principle: "Silence from the administrative authority for two months on a request constitutes acceptance."
Decrees No. 2014-1290 and No. 2014-1291 of October 23, 2014, establish exceptions to the rule of implicit acceptance in the new Article 21 of Law No. 2000-321 of April 12, 2000, concerning citizens' rights in their dealings with government agencies. These two decrees, which entered into force on November 12, 2014, specifically address exceptions to this article in the context of citizens' interactions with the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Vocational Training, and Social Dialogue and its administration.
Decree No. 2014-1290 specifies the list of procedures under the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Vocational Training, and Social Dialogue for which implicit acceptance by the administration is granted after a period different from the standard two-month period. The timeframes set by this decree vary between eight and thirty days.
The requests covered by these exceptions relate to the organization of working and rest periods. The request for an exemption from the minimum daily rest period and the authorization to exceed the maximum daily working time per employee are thus granted, in the absence of a response from the administration, after a period of fifteen days. Similarly, in the absence of a response from the administration, the authorization to implement flexible working hours and the authorization to organize work continuously for economic reasons and to allocate weekly rest periods on a rotating basis are granted after a period of thirty days.
Decree No. 2014-1291 concerns administrative procedures to which the "silence means acceptance" rule does not apply. On the contrary, the administration's silence for two months constitutes a rejection for the requests listed in the decree's appendix. In this respect, the administration's silence for two months constitutes a rejection of the request.
- authorization for the mutual termination of the employment contract of protected employees;
- extension of the temporary exemption to Sunday rest;
- authorization to transfer the employment contract of an employee included in a partial transfer of a business or establishment.
