On 14 November 2014 the General Meeting of the Civil Chamber of the Bulgarian Court of Cassation issued Interpretative Decision No 8 to provide obligatory guidance regarding two employment issues. The first question addressed by the General Meeting was whether the lunch and other meals breaks shall be included into the working time in cases where the employees work under uninterrupted working process conditions (shifted and on-duty working time regimes) or not. The need for obligatory interpretation aroused since the courts of last instances have resolved on the issue in a contradicting manner. The General Meeting stated that the general rule that breaks are not included into the working time does not apply to cases where the individuals are working under uninterrupted working time regime. Generally, the employees are free to do whatever they want during their breaks, but in case of uninterrupted working process, they shall be physically present at their working places, which pre-supposes that under said conditions the breaks shall be included into the working time. For the purposes of the above interpretation the General Meeting also reviewed and referred to relevant preliminary rulings of the ECJ (cases C-303/98, C-151/02, C-437/05, C-429/09). The second question was whether leaves (notwithstanding their duration or type) shall be included into the three months basis for calculation of the overtime work performed by employees working under the conditions of aggregate calculation of the working time. Indeed, the court practice was found to be consistent as far as the fact that such leave shall not be included into the working time for the purposes of the overtime calculations. The contradicting practice rather concerns the calculation of the overtime, namely whether the three months basis for the calculation shall be reduced by the one month of leave used during the period for the purposes of the calculation or shall be used as a basis for the calculation, as is, without any reduction. The General Meeting stated that the first approach shall be applied, namely, the three months basis shall be reduced with the duration of the leave used during the period and the overtime work shall be calculated on the resulting basis.
