A teacher has been awarded €22,500 for unfair dismissal after a tribunal found that the repeated renewal of his one-year employment contract meant he was effectively under an indefinite contract and justification was needed when it was not renewed.   

The Industrial Tribunal, chaired by John Bencini, found that the dismissal of teacher Abdulmunaam Albakush from the 24 December Libyan School and the Libyan Higher Vocational Institute constituted unfair dismissal.

Albakush had been employed as a teacher since November 2014 and his contract was renewed annually. Then in December 2021 his wife, who also worked at the school, was dismissed from her teaching post. The following March, she 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.  Head of School Abdulfatah Kharwat reassured him that there was no problem because his job had no connection to the dispute between his wife and her employer.

But in June 2022 he was denied entry to the building which houses the institute without explanation. The following month, Identity Malta, informed him that his residence permit was being revoked because his employer had filed a termination letter.

The school, through its lawyer Rebecca Mercieca, argued that although Albakush’s wife had been fired for allegedly misappropriating data belonging to the Institute, about which a police report had been filed, this had no bearing on Albakush himself. The school denied having dismissed him, pointing out that he had worked until the expiry of his contract.

Tribunal Chairman John Bencini noted that according to the Fixed Term Contracts Directive, transposed into Maltese law in 2008, when an employee was engaged on a fixed term contract for a period of four years or more, then the contract was deemed to be 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,” the tribunal said. 

Lawyer Andrew Grima assisted Albakush.