The teacher, recently dismissed by the Court of Cassation for having missed school for 20 of 24 years, breaks the silence and defends herself through a statement.
The story begins a few years ago, with the sentence of the Court of Venice that established the illegitimacy of his dispensation from service. The Ministry of Education appealed alleging the teacher’s teaching incapacity and questioning her prolonged absences from her. The teacher then took the matter to the Supreme Court, culminating in a landmark ruling.
Contrary to media reports, the teacher assures that she has not suffered any “dismissal”, but has been accused of “didactic incapacity”. This is in stark contrast to her numerous graduate degrees and long career. The teacher stressed that the aforementioned Cassation sentence does not respond to a truth founded on law and that there is no provision for dismissal issued.
The teacher affirms that art. 512 of Legislative Decree 297/94, used to justify his “removal”, actually refers to the dispensation from the service, not the dismissal. In addition, he maintains that his dismissal appears for the first time in the appeal judgment and has no legal basis.
For the teacher, his “dismissal” represents a kind of “monstrous creature” born in defiance of the laws of the state. Since dismissal is the most serious of disciplinary sanctions, he stresses that during her career she has never received such a sanction or been challenged for conduct that could have justified it.
The case then develops like a legal puzzle of great interest. With a series of press releases on the way, expect a fierce fight for the truth.
The full press release
The history
The story unfolds along a path that began a few years ago and has as milestones: sentence no. 228/2018 of the Civil Courts section of Venice, which clearly exposed the context and environment in which the facts of the case took place and which verified “the illegitimacy of the dispensation provision issued” against the permanent teacher De Lio for its director at the Chioggia headquarters, ordering the Miur to rejoin, career reconstruction and all legal costs;
the appeal filed by the Ministry of Education – which, by not arguing what the didactic incapacity consists of with respect to an ultra-specialized and permanent teacher like De Lio, literally turned the accusations towards the count, however false it might be, of the absences going as far as to affirm that he obtained all his qualifications “to be absent from the service” – which ended with sentence no. 488/2021 of the Court of Appeal of Venice that reformed the judgment of first instance;
the teacher’s appeal before the Court of Cassation that ended with the transcendental Cass. civ. Work section no. 17897 in which those who had an interest dissolved the omissions on the general information set in the version published by the Court, thus throwing Professor De Lio, a particularly well-prepared teacher who was only to blame for finding herself teaching in the wrong place, in a beautiful amphitheater.
No “dismissal” measures
We come to the ruling of the Supreme Court, at the center of media attention. The teacher Cinzia Paolina De Lio, unlike what has been made known and disseminated, has not suffered any measure of “dismissal” by the Ministry of Education, having been challenged by her school director -exclusively- for “didactic incapacity “.
We will stop at another press release on the legal institution of “didactic disability” and, properly and specifically, on the legitimacy of this dispute against professor prof. De Lio, in possession of numerous qualifications, also related to teaching, obtained at various State Universities in the national territory, as well as indefinitely in State functions for many years. What can be read in the Cassation sentence, informing the appeal sentence, namely that “The Court of Appeals of Venice with the sentence no. 488 of 2021, in reform to the first instance judgment, accepted the Ministry’s appeal and rejected the worker’s request, considering the dismissal provision issued in accordance with art. 512 of Legislative Decree no. 297 of 1994″ is not -totally- in accordance with the truth founded on law. And indeed, there is no “dismissal order issued” in respect of Professor De Lio.
In addition, sensationally, the aforementioned article of the law, that is, art. 512 of Legislative Decree no. 297 of 1994 does not refer to dismissal.
In confirmation of this, it is noted that the prologue of art. 512 of Legislative Decree 297/94 is titled and remains as follows: “Art. 512 – Dispensation from service – The personnel referred to in this title are released from service due to ineptitude or physical disability or persistent insufficient performance”.
didactic incapacity
As additional proof of the lack of foundation of the alleged “dismissal” it is also underlined that in the decree (confidential protocol n. 1765.3.1a) issued by the director and signed only by him, we read “The director… decrees… the teacher De Lio Cinzia Paolina… permanent professor at the Institute of Higher Education “G. Veronese – G. Marconi” in Chioggia (VE), in accordance with and for the purposes of article 512 of Legislative Decree 297/1994, is exempt from service for didactic disability”.
The appeal before the Venice labor judge was duly based on this reason for withdrawal, that is, on the alleged “didactic incapacity” and not on any other reason.
Deposition of a “monstrous” creature born despite the laws of the State
There is no doubt, therefore, that unlike what was stated in the Cassation judgment:
- the invoked article 512 of Legislative Decree 297/1994 does not refer to dismissal but to dispensation (while the legal institution of dismissal is regulated by article 498 of the same Legislative Decree);
- no “dismissal measure” has ever been “issued in accordance with art. 512 of Legislative Decree no. 297 of 1994” of Prof. Cinzia Paolina De Lio. The “removal” of Professor Cinzia Paolina De Lio from whom no mentioned in the judgment of first instance – and which appears out of nowhere for the first time in the appeal judgment and then slavishly recounted in the Cassation judgment – lacks any legal basis. Dismissal constitutes the most serious of sanctions disciplinary sanctions against civil employees of the State but Professor De Lio has never received a disciplinary sanction in her career.The dismissal – by State laws to which the judges of the Court of Appeal of Venice and of Cassation are obliged to observe – is inflicted , with regard to school personnel, in accordance with “art. 498 – Dismissal”, of Legislative Decree No. 297/94, consolidated text on the matter, as the last and most serious disciplinary measure, exclusively in the following cases, circumscribed in detail and punctually:
a) for acts that are in serious conflict with the duties inherent to the function;
b) for fraudulent activity that has caused serious damage to the school, the public administration, students, and families;
c) due to the illicit use or diversion of school assets or amounts administered or retained in deposit, or due to the concurrence in the same acts or due to the tolerance of such acts committed by other operators of the same school or office, on which which, in relation to the function, have supervisory duties;
d) for serious acts of non-compliance with legitimate provisions committed publicly in the exercise of functions, or by concurrence to them;
e) for requests or acceptance of compensation or benefits in relation to businesses managed for service reasons;
f) for serious abuses of authority. Professor Cinzia De Lio was not responsible for any of these conducts, none of these conducts have been challenged in the course of any disciplinary proceedings. Professor De Lio, therefore, not only has she never been “fired” by the administration to which she belongs, but she has never suffered -in an absolute sense- any disciplinary measure in her entire career.
Since there is no – in the laws of the Italian State – a “non-disciplinary dismissal”, Professor De Lio, technically, cannot be “dismissed”. Professor De Lio’s “removal” is therefore a mere monstrous and abnormal “creature” born despite the laws of the state.
