An important issue related to leaves in employment law, that we deal with in our accounting company PRWT, is the question of the admissibility of dividing the leave into parts shorter than 14 days.

First of all, it should be noted that, in accordance with Article 152 § 1 of the Labor Code, “An employee is entitled to an annual, uninterrupted, paid leave”. Article 161 obliges the employer to grant the employee a leave in the calendar year in which the employee obtained the right to the leave.

However, in accordance with Article 162 of the Labor Code:

“At the request of the employee, the leave may be divided into parts. In such case, however, at least one part of the leave should last no less than 14 consecutive calendar days. “

The abovementioned provisions state a principle of granting a full-time annual leave to an employee. Annual leave is divided into parts at the employee’s request. In case of dividing the leave into parts, in accordance with the literal wording of the provision, at least one part of the leave should last no less than 14 consecutive calendar days. Applications for the division of leaves should be submitted by employees at the stage of planning leaves by the employer. The preparation of a leave plan is an obligation under Article 163 § 1 of the Labor Code, except for the situation when the trade union organization has agreed to the lack of plans. While establishing a vacation plan or agreeing the date of the leave individually with the employee, the employer should take into account the condition set out in Article 162 sentence 2 of the Labor Code, which states that at least one part of the holiday leave should not last less than 14 consecutive calendar days. However, if no part of the leave covers at least 14 consecutive calendar days (including days off), accepting the employee’s request for the division of leave does not constitute an offense against the employee’s rights under Article 282 § 1 point 2 of the Labor Code, which is a failure to grant the employee the holiday leave he is entitled to. Although it is contrary to the literal wording, it does not fulfill the provisions of Article 282 § 1 point 2 of the Labor Code. It is therefore assumed that the employer’s duty is to provide the employee with the possibility of taking an uninterrupted leave of 14 days. If the employee wishes to divide the leave into shorter parts, it cannot be said that the employer has violated the provisions of the Labor Code.

However, it should be emphasized that due to the fact that the division of the leave into parts requires an employee’s request, it is advisable to provide written requests in this regard for evidence purposes.

Summing up, it should be noted that on the date of this opinion, the employer may divide the employee’s leave at the stage of drawing up the leave plan in such way that each part of the leave is less than 14 days. However, the application for the division must be submitted by the employee. For this reason, for evidence purposes, acting in the employer’s best interest, it is advisable to provide written requests from the employees in this matter.