Constitutional Court rules mobbing wages need not be repaid

Croatia’s Constitutional Court has annulled a judgment that forced a worker to return 800,784.72 kuna of gross wages he had received while he was not working during a seven-year anti-discrimination dispute, ruling that his right to property was violated. In decision U-III-2609/2023 of 14 July 2026, published in Narodne novine no. 91 of 19 August 2026, the Court upheld the constitutional complaint of Goran Vlahov of Šibenik and returned the case to the Županijski sud u Rijeci (County Court in Rijeka) for retrial.

The applicant had stopped work in 2009 claiming he was being mobbed by his employer, the Republic of Croatia (Customs Administration), and sued for protection against discrimination. The dispute, which by its nature is urgent, ran from 8 May 2009 to 5 December 2016 — seven years and seven months — and ended with his claim being rejected. The employer then sued to recover the wages paid during the stoppage.

The contested judgment

The Općinski sud u Šibeniku (Municipal Court in Šibenik) initially rejected the State’s claim, holding that the worker’s right to stop work with pay was unconditional under the law in force at the time. On appeal, the Županijski sud u Rijeci reversed that ruling and ordered Goran Vlahov to repay the gross amount with default interest running from 11 August 2017, plus 58,070.00 kuna in litigation costs.

The Constitutional Court found that the County Court had not weighed the length of the anti-discrimination proceedings, which exceeded the statutory six-month deadline for labour disputes, and had ordered repayment of a far larger sum (in gross, rather than net, terms) than would have been due had the case been concluded in a reasonable time. It concluded that the worker’s right to property under Article 48(1) of the Constitution had been breached.

The legal background

The right of a worker who is harassed or sexually harassed to stop work while protection is secured, with pay as if working, was introduced into Croatian labour law by the 2003 amendment to the Zakon o radu (Labour Act, ZR/95), Article 22.a, and was retained in Article 130 of ZR/09 and Article 134 of ZR/14. Only with Article 134(7) of ZR/14 did the law give the employer the possibility to claim repayment if a final judgment later found that the worker’s dignity had not been violated.

The Court stressed that the State, as the employer, was responsible for ensuring the urgent dispute was concluded in time, and that the consequences of its failure should not fall on the worker. It warned that forcing workers to choose between enduring discrimination and risking repayment of wages would weaken anti-discrimination protection in the workplace.

Dissenting opinion

The decision was adopted at a session on 14 July 2026 by the Court sitting with president Frane Staničić and judges Andrej Abramović, Sanja Bezbradica Jelavić, Dražen Bošnjaković, Ante Galić, Biljana Kostadinov, Lovorka Kušan, Maša Marochini Zrinski, Rajko Mlinarić and Miroslav Šumanović. Judge Miroslav Šumanović filed a dissenting opinion, arguing that the majority wrongly treated the repayment obligation as a property-rights issue and that the worker’s loss of the anti-discrimination case, not the length of the proceedings, was the true cause of the repayment obligation.

The ruling is a landmark for workers who stop work because of harassment: it establishes that the risk of a slow, urgent anti-discrimination dispute must not be shifted onto the employee, and that wages received during such a stoppage cannot automatically be clawed back in full.

Source: Narodne novine, no. 91, 19 August 2026, section I, p. 1 (official reference: U-III-2609/2023).