Law No. 2013-1005 of November 12, 2013 empowering the Government to simplify relations between the administration and citizens amended Article 21 of Law No. 2000-321 of April 12, 2000 relating to the rights of citizens in their relations with the authorities.
While the law of April 12, 2000 provided that the silence kept by an administration for more than two months is in principle worth rejection, the law of November 12, 2013 enshrines the opposite principle according to which "The silence kept for two months by the administrative authority on a request constitutes a decision of acceptance". Decrees no. 2014-1290 and no. 2014-1291 of October 23, 2014 provide for exceptions to the rule of implicit acceptance of the new article 21 of law no. 2000-321 of April 12, 2000 relating to the rights of citizens in their relations with the authorities.
These two decrees, which entered into force on November 12, 2014, specifically target exceptions to this article in citizens' relations with the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Vocational Training and Social Dialogue and its administration. Decree No. 2014-1290 specifies the list of procedures, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Vocational Training and Social Dialogue, for which an implicit acceptance of the administration is acquired following a period different from the period two months in principle.
The deadlines set by this decree vary between eight and thirty days. The requests covered by these exceptions relate to the organization of working time and rest time.
The request for derogation from the minimum duration of daily rest and the authorization to exceed the maximum daily duration of effective work per employee are thus acquired, in the silence of the administration, at the end of a period of fifteen days. . Similarly, in the silence of the administration, the authorization to practice timetables and the authorization to organize work on a continuous basis for economic reasons and to allocate weekly rest in rotation are acquired at the end of within thirty days. Decree No. 2014-1291 covers administrative procedures to which the rule of “silence equals acceptance” is not applicable. On the contrary, the silence kept for two months by the administration is worth a decision of rejection for the requests listed in the appendix to the decree. In this respect, the silence kept for two months by the administration is worth a decision to reject the request:
- authorization of conventional termination of the employment contract of protected employees;
- extension of the temporary derogation to Sunday rest;
- authorization to transfer the employment contract of an employee included in a partial transfer of business or establishment.
