Potestatives rights in the employment contract

A potestative right allows his holder to create, modify or extinguish another’s legal situation. The employment relation, as for it, is marked by a logic of power(s). How, in these conditions, does the concept of potestative right enter the employment contract? How does the latter receive the potestative right ? What sacrifices should be made by the potestative rights ?

If potestative rights are accepted in the employment contract, it is only in a framed, supervised and limited way. Potestative rights are then controlled and sanctioned by judges willing to enforce both its spirit and limits.

However, since the potestative right is applied through a unilateral act, because it concerns the ability to impose one’s will upon others, shouldn’t the interests of the recipient be preserved, at the very least? The object of the employment contract, the subordination of the employee, therefore leads towards the question of the place to begiven to the employee’s fundamental rights and freedoms.

Keywords: Good faith – employment contract – clauses – Potestative right – fundamental rights and freedom – end of the contract – binding effect – modification of the contract – null and void – unilateralism – power