Dismissal On Grounds Of Suspicion

In past years, case law has increasingly dealt with a special form of termination that is largely unknown to the wider public and seldom considered by human resources departments: dismissal on grounds of suspicion.

The Nature of Dismissal on Grounds of Suspicion

In this form of termination, an employee (or a board member such as a managing director or management board member) may be dismissed on grounds that he or she is under suspicion of having committed a serious breach of duty. In many respects, dismissal on the grounds of mere suspicion seems odd, because the dismissed employee may turn out to have been innocent of the allegation. Nevertheless, as grounds for dismissal, suspicion ranks equally with a proven offense. This leads to the core problem pertaining to dismissal on grounds of suspicion: weighing the employee's need to be protected from unjustified accusation and dismissal against the employer's need to facilitate termination of employment when the type