Redundant

A Court of Appeal’s judgement, delivered on the 31^st of October of 2016 by Mr Justice Anthony Ellul, elaborated on the element of redundancy and its implications in Employment Law. Vanessa Fenech vs SL Shipping Management Company Limited tackled ‘redundancy’ as an element of ending an employment relationship.

Redundancies under Maltese Law

The Employer is prohibited from terminating a contract of employment at will and after the lapse of probationary period, and the employer may only terminate redundancy; “good and sufficient cause”; or retirement age.

Where an employer intends to terminate the employment of an employee on grounds of redundancy, he shall terminate the employment of that person who was engaged last in the class of employment affected by such redundancy. Should the post formerly occupied by the redundant person be available again within a period of one year, that person shall be entitled to that post.

The Case

The employee was told that her post became redundant due to a drop in business which had necessitated a restructuring of the company. However, to the contrary, the business was getting so good that in the months leading up to her termination Fenech’s responsibilities had increased.

The court explained that for a redundancy to be considered to have taken place, the reason for dismissal should in no way be related to the individual concerned.

It is interesting to note that the court highlighted certain elements as elements which weakened the strength of the redundancy claim. Primarily the absence of evidence that the woman had been informed of the possibility of redundancy before she was handed the termination letter; and also, the fact that Fenech was the only employee that the company had made redundant during the period, both were considered as a contributory factor.

Reiterated also in this case is the requirement that such a position should be abolished. To the contrary, in this case, the job started to be performed by an employee in another company.

To this end, the termination of this relationship was considered to not be by reason of redundancy, thus the court awarded damages to the employee.