Protection Standards against Unfair Dismissal in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Employers have greater bargaining power in negotiating labour contracts due to power imbalance between the parties and typically aim to protect their own interests, which causes a significant threat to workers’ protection against unfair dismissal. Workers’ protection against termination of their employment for an invalid reason has been a feature of the Saudi Labour Law since 1996. However, the protection against unfair dismissal criteria afforded in the current Labour Law is inadequate when evaluated against the International Labour Organisation’s unfair dismissal protection standards established in 1982 and the UK’s unfair dismissal law in 1971. This thesis aims to critically assess the existing Saudi labour legislation regarding unfair dismissal. It also seeks to examine ILO norms against unfair dismissal as a coherent set of rules and procedures relevant to unfair dismissal that could be applied to the Saudi labour law system. It aims to measure how the UK, as a comparator, has framed its unfair dismissal law, what its experience has been in the operation of such law, and how this might be beneficial when considering reforms to the Saudi rules on unfair dismissal. This thesis questions the protection criteria against unfair dismissal, their historical development, and present practices in Saudi Arabia. It also examines how ILO benchmarks can be adapted to provide adequate legal protection for all workers against unfair dismissal in Saudi labour law. Also, it asks how the UK labour law on unfair dismissal has evolved and how its experience can contribute to suggesting reforms for the Saudi labour law system. This thesis will contribute to the existing knowledge by defining the inadequacies within the Labour Law and practices concerning unfair dismissal protection standards for workers in Saudi Arabia. It will also contribute to providing an in-depth analysis based on the recently developed knowledge on protection against dismissal in Saudi Arabia. It will contribute to giving insight into unfair protection standards by using the International Labour Organisation protection norms as a reference point and the UK’s legislative and judicial approach and experiences and their extent to offer the Saudi lawmakers better protection standards against unfair dismissal for all workers in Saudi Arabia.