What Unfair Dismissal Means and What Challenging It Gives You
Unfair dismissal and reinstatement are legal categories defined by the Georgian Labour Code: where the termination of an employment contract is unfounded or procedurally defective, the employee may challenge the employer's decision in court and seek to have it declared null. This page is about the remedies the law gives you after the challenge — reinstatement, equivalent work or compensation, together with compensation for forced absence — and the deadlines within which those remedies must be pursued.
The right to challenge flows from the termination procedure itself. The employee may, within 30 calendar days of receiving the employer's notice of termination, demand written substantiation of the ground, and the employer must respond within 7 calendar days. If the substantiation never arrives or does not justify the dismissal, the window for applying to the court is again 30 calendar days. Where the employer fails to substantiate the ground within 7 calendar days, the burden of proving the factual circumstances of the dispute shifts to the employer — the employee's strongest procedural advantage.