Legal Question in Employment Law in Ethiopia

According to Ethiopian labour law, the grounds for dismissal due to misconduct are determined only by operation of the law or collective agreement. Therefore any agreement between an employee and employer stipulating for grounds for dismissal without notice is not valid and acceptable. A certain misconduct or offense to be considered a valid ground of dismissal it should either be listed in the labour legislation or provided in a collective agreement.

In your case, the fact that they mentioned the contract article is not relevant. what is important is wether disclosure of organizational secret is a valid ground of dismissal according to the labour legislation. There is no expilicit reference to disclosure of secret in the legislation but one of the provision states that if the employee is responsible for causing damage intentionally or through gross negligence to any property of the employer or to another property which is directly connected with the work of the undertaking, he will be dismissed without notice.

Accordingly, disclosure will be a valid ground provided the information is 1) confidential 2) important to the safety and property of the employer 3) disclosure has caused damage

This means in effect, you will not be dismissed unless all these criteria are fulfilled.

Lastly, your dismissal will be unlawful, if you were not given a letter stating the detailed reasons for your dismissal.

There is also a time limit to take dismissal measure, which is one month starting from the date of knowledge of the alleged misconduct. The employer is given only one month to take dismissal action. Failing that, the dismissal becomes automatically unlawful.