Tribunal awards long-standing teacher €22,500 over non-renewal of fixed-term contract

The Industrial Tribunal has awarded a former private school teacher €22,500 for unfair dismissal, after ruling that the repeated renewal of his one-year employment contract meant that it was effectively an indefinite one, and required a good reason be provided for its non-renewal.

This emerges from a decision handed down on April 19 in the employment dispute filed by Abdulmunaam Albakush against the 24 December Libyan School and the Libyan Higher Vocational Institute.

Albakush told the court that the trouble started when, for reasons unknown to him, his wife was dismissed from her teaching post at the Libyan Higher Vocational Institute in December 2021. The following March, she had filed proceedings before the Industrial Tribunal against her former employer, claiming unfair dismissal.

Almost immediately after that, Albakush heard that he, too,  was going to be fired. He contacted the Head of School Abdulfatah Kharwat, who reassured him that there was no problem because his job had no connection to the dispute between his wife and her employer.

But when, in June 2022, he had applied to renew his Single Permit, he was denied entry to the building which houses the Institute without explanation. The following month, Identity Malta, had written to Albakush to inform him that his residence permit was being revoked because his employer had filed a termination letter.

The school, through its lawyer Rebecca Mercieca confirmed that although Albakush’s wife had been fired for allegedly misappropriating data belonging to the Institute, about which a police report had also been filed, this had no bearing on Albakush himself. He had been employed on an indefinite contract, Mercieca explained, and it was his separate role as an examiner that had to be renewed every year.

Upon receiving a legal letter from Albakush, it had “lost all trust in the applicant,”  the Tribunal was told. 

But the school denied having dismissed him, pointing out that he had worked until the expiry of his contract. At the end of 2022, the applicant had started to insist that he wanted written confirmation as to whether his contract was being renewed or not for the following year, said the lawyer, which was contrary to the Institute’s policy.

Tribunal Chairman John Bencini said he found it very surprising that the man had not been given a clear explanation for the termination of his employment, particularly in the absence of any verbal or written warnings. “Obviously dismissal from employment must always be the last resort,” pointed out the tribunal.

Bencini emphasised that the Fixed Term Contracts Directive, first transposed into Maltese law in 2008, a succession of fixed term contracts for a period of four years or more meant that the contract had been transformed into an indefinite one.

Despite this fact, the defendants had not felt it necessary to provide a reason for the termination of his employment, besides simply stating that it was not being renewed.

“This is all wrong, because once the applicant satisfied the requirements established in the subsidiary legislation, his employment with the defendants had to be treated as being on an indefinite basis. It follows, therefore, that in order for them to be able to dismiss the applicant, they had to show good and sufficient grounds at law to do so. This they had not done.”

Lawyers Andrew Grima and Mark Attard Montalto assisted Albakush.