{"id":8482,"date":"2026-04-20T12:13:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T10:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.herald-avocats.com\/?p=8482"},"modified":"2026-04-20T14:10:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:10:40","slug":"expired-mandate-too-late-to-extend-it-even-in-good-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.herald-avocats.com\/en\/expired-mandate-too-late-to-extend-it-even-in-good-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Expired mandate: too late to extend it, even in good faith!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expired mandate: too late to extend it, even in good faith!<\/span><\/h1>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n

April 16th, 2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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|<\/span><\/strong>Labour Law<\/a>|<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Guillaume Roland<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Sandrine Henrion<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Court of cassation recently reiterated, in a ruling dated March 18, 2026*<\/span><\/span>, that a representative mandate can only be extended if it is still ongoing on the date the decision is made.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once a mandate has expired, any extension decided afterward, even in good faith or during an institutional transition, has no legal effect.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this case, the mandates of the staff representatives were due to expire on June 24, 2018, while elections for the new Comit\u00e9 social et \u00e9conomique (CSE) were scheduled for October. The employer, acting in what they believed to be good faith, decided on August 21 to extend the mandates until the elections were held. In the meantime, a staff representative was dismissed on grounds of incapacity without administrative authorization and invoked the protection attached to her extended mandate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the Court of Appeal had ruled in her favor, the Court of cassation overturned that decision, emphasizing that the duration of employee representative mandates is a matter of public policy: it cannot be altered or extended once the term has expired. It is irrelevant that the administration raised no objections and that the representative bodies continued to operate.<\/span><\/p>\n

An expired mandate cannot be revived by a subsequent decision. Consequently, the employee no longer benefited from protected status, and her dismissal, carried out without authorization from the labor inspectorate, was valid.<\/span><\/p>\n

This decision has direct practical consequences: only extensions decided before the mandate\u2019s expiration date are valid. Once mandates end, protection automatically ceases, and the company must treat them as having expired.<\/span><\/p>\n

This ruling reflects a strict approach aimed at ensuring legal certainty. It highlights the need for employers to anticipate the end of mandates in order to avoid any gap in representation or irregular situations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our opinion<\/u><\/strong> : We recommend implementing a formal system to track mandate deadlines and remind you that electoral procedures must be initiated several months before their expiry. In the event of a foreseeable delay, only an express unanimous agreement between the employer and all representative trade unions in the company, concluded before the expiration date, can validly extend the mandates.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

*<\/span><\/span>Cass., Soc., 18 mars 2026, n\u00b024-16.192<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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=><\/span><\/strong><\/span> For any advice on employment law or social security law, please contact Guillaume Roland, partner: g.roland@herald-avocats.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article written by Guillaume Roland and Sandrine Henrion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alerts","category-publications-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLabour Law - Expired mandate: too late to extend it, even in good faith!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Court of Cassation confirms that employee representative mandates cannot be extended after expiration, even in good faith, and that only timely extensions agreed before the end of the term are legally valid.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.herald-avocats.com\/en\/expired-mandate-too-late-to-extend-it-even-in-good-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Labour Law - 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