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By Mohammed Osman
According to the new residency law, if an employee discloses the company’s trade secrets, the employer has the right to dismiss him/her without any right to end of service benefits, said a senior legal expert.
The general provision of the law is that if any expatriate has a certain type of residency permit in the country, that must be respected and not violated.
Under the new law, an expatriate is allowed to do some administrative works in another company if he/she is a partner and authorized to sign, said Hussam Tantawy, General Manager and Senior Legal Consultant at Al Sulaiti Law Firm.
Although this is in favour of the expatriate worker, it can create conflict of interests if the company he manages is doing the same business.
To solve such possible conflict, Article 43 of the law has stipulated that job contracts must include a condition that prevents the employee from working in another competing company and the ban continues for two years even after leaving the work.
If not mentioned in the contract, the employee is free to take up managerial positions in another company but his name has to be there on the commercial registration issued by the Ministry of Economy and Commerce. However, the employee remains accountable for disclosing any secret of his employer. The law requires employees to keep the company's secrets confidential even after the termination of their services.
The new law has also stipulated a number of reasons for changing job, such as end of contract or five years of work under an open contract, death of the employer, the cancellation of the company for any reason or if employer’s abuse is confirmed, said Hussam.
He added that the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs has eased the notification system by providing electronic forms to avoid dispute and facilitate documentation of applications.
Following the issuance of the new labour law and Law No 21 of 2015 regulating entry, exit and residency of expatriates in Qatar. many questions have been raised in relation to exit permit, changing job, electronic contract, etc.
This is because the executive regulation of the law is still not issued, said Mubarak bin Abdullah Al Sulaiti, the Chaiman of Al Sulaiti Law Firm, addressing a seminar on “changes in the immigration and employment law in Qatar.
The law brings many advantages to the labour market and makes it easier for job change, reduces labour cases in courts, eases exit permit, ends sponsorship system and ends the need for No Objection Certificate (NOC) for job changes. Despite all these, there are still a number of questions that need to be answered and clarifications needed to be made in the absence of the executive law, said Hussam.
The seminar was jointly organised by Al Sulaiti Law Firm and The Oath Law Journal to address questions raised by the public about the law and its provisions.
When the law was issued, the first impression of the employers was that it was biased towards workers, while others thought that the labour rights are still controlled by the employers. "Under this situation we have been approached by companies and individuals seeking clarifications and consultation," said Hussam. He presented a paper under the title, “rights and obligations under the employment contract”.
If the worker decided not to continue with his employer after his contract ends, the law allows him to stay in Qatar for three months to look for another job or rectify his status but must leave the country at the end of this three month period, he emphasized.
A question was raised in the seminar about whether employees working in accordance with an open ended contract can change job at the end of five years and before starting their sixth year in the same job or he should wait until the end of a new contract, if he had signed a new contract.
Hussam said that there are two opinions in this regard. One suggests that he/she must complete the new contract and can change after five years. The other view is that as long as he finished five years or more, he can change any time during the second term of the contract, but this issue needs intervention of legislators to be clear, he added.
Regarding the calculation of the end of service benefits after five years if the employee signed a new contract with less basic salary and less payable days, Hussam said that the labour law protects the right of the labour and this will not affect his/her rights and the employee has the right not to sign the contract and file a lawsuit against the employers.
Mathieu R Faupin, Senior Legal Consultant and Head of International Section at Al Sulaiti Law Firm, presented a paper that covered Exit permit, Grievance Committee and E- Employment Contract.
Faupin pointed out that the major reform regarding the exit permit is the establishment of the grievance committee which consists of six members. If the grievance committee did not take a decision within three working days, then it shall be interpreted as a rejection of the employee’s decision to leave the country, he said.
© The Peninsula 2017
