Interpreting or creating the law? A critical app roach to the judicial understanding of section 171 of the Labor Code

The purpose of this paper is to analyze a Labor case law which consists in the extension of a rule of section 168 final paragraph of the Labor Code to a different hypothetical, that of section 171. It states that judicial enforcement of section 168's rule to those situations covered by section 171 ensues not as the product of judicial interpretation but as an outcome of judicial activism. Under the claim that they are applying a central principle of Labor Law, judges alter legislator's intent by attaching a different juridical value to factual premises underlying the legal text. By this fashion, judges become legislators themselves.