Intertemporal Law should regulate the way in which laws will apply to facts over time, such as the retroactive effects of the Labor Reform, since the decision may affect contracts prior to the change that occurred in 2017, as well as numerous lawsuits already filed and in progress from the perspective of the law previously practiced, acquired and in force at the time, which were suppressed or changed.

Some of the main issues of repercussion addressed in topic 23 arise from labor rights resulting from the law that were or should have been remunerated during the course of the employment contract, such as intra-shift breaks, travel hours, function bonuses and the 15-minute rest period for women before starting to work overtime.

The concern lies in the question of whether or not there will be an obligation to recognize the right in contracts in force in the period after the entry into force of the law that changed or even suppressed them.

The conjunction of the relationship is established in a stable order, which does not mean retrograde, but rather consistent in respecting the laws and rights acquired in a coherent society, where legal events can undergo mutations and yet remain simultaneously, where the intensity of one and the magnitude of the other are proportionally timeless, intertemporal until their legal compliance.

It is expected that the rule of Intertemporal Law will prevail, in the sense that the new law respects previously performed acts, as well as their effects, applying only to subsequent acts the effects of the change and/or suppression suffered by the new law.                                                                                                          

Dr. Keila Freitas, Partner at FFA.