The Council of State's ruling on the Cornebarrieu crematorium case establishes the judicial judge's exclusive jurisdiction over SPIC agents, ensuring legal coherence and predictability.
Extract
[...] No municipal subsidy came to fill a potential operating deficit. The entire resources of the service came directly from the payment of funeral services. Hence, the absence of public financing and the existence of a direct contractual relationship with users were decisive indicators of the assimilation of the crematorium to a private economic activity, justifying its qualification as a SPIC. This qualification has an immediate and irreversible consequence: the competence of the judicial judge. A jurisdictional competence aligned with the nature of the service The attribution of a specific legal regime to a public service necessarily implies a precise delimitation of jurisdictional competences. [...]
[...] The case originated from a dispute between the municipality of Toulouse and Mr. A., a funeral assistant employed at the municipal crematorium of Cornebarrieu, managed directly by the municipality. Upon his retirement, he brought the matter before the Conseil de Prud'hommes, contesting the termination of his contract and seeking reclassification as an unfair dismissal, along with compensation. The dispute is a classic one. The reasoning of the Conseil de Prud'hommes is also typical. Based on the organic criterion, it declined jurisdiction, considering that Mr. [...]
[...] The July ruling definitively puts an end to this uncertainty. It establishes a clear and unambiguous solution: SPIC agents cannot claim a public law status; the disputes concerning them fall exclusively within the jurisdiction of the judicial court. This clarification guarantees a homogeneous application of labor law, ruling out any risk of requalification a posteriori of the status of the agents. One of the major interests of this solution lies in the expertise of the labor courts in matters of labor disputes. [...]
[...] This solution guarantees absolute legal coherence. But this decision does not stop at a question of competence. The judgment of 8 July 2024 is part of a jurisprudential movement of clarification of the regimes applicable to economic public services. It consecrates the primacy of the functional criterion over a purely organic approach. But its scope far exceeds the sole contentiousness of crematoriums. It is a further milestone in the consolidation of the SPA/SPIC distinction. A ruling that reinforces the readability of the applicable law, ensuring a rational articulation of the dual jurisdiction. [...]
[...] This reasoning, initially applied to the operation of the service, has progressively been transposed to the status of agents working within SPIC. This jurisprudential evolution reached a decisive turning point with the Berkani (CE March 1996) decision. The Council of State then consecrated a rule of absolute clarity: all SPA agents are public agents subject to administrative law, while those of SPIC are private sector employees. This distinction, of unimpeachable logic, is based on a fundamental principle: in a SPIC, the employment relationship is not governed by public power prerogatives, but by contractual obligations relevant to common labor law. [...]
