Constitutional Court assesses legality of dismissing teachers for immoral misconduct
Tengrinews.kz — In Kazakhstan, teachers may be dismissed for immoral misconduct deemed incompatible with continuing their teaching duties. The Constitutional Court considered whether this ground for dismissal is defined clearly enough in the Labor Code.
The case was prompted by an appeal from a woman who had been dismissed under subparagraph 14 of paragraph 1 of Article 52 of the Labor Code for committing immoral misconduct incompatible with continuing her work. The decision to dismiss her was made by the school’s pedagogical ethics council.
Disagreeing with the decision, the woman appealed to a conciliation commission and later to the courts. However, the court rulings in her case were left unchanged.
The woman argued that the law does not provide clear characteristics or objective criteria for what constitutes immoral misconduct. In her view, this allows employers to interpret the provision too broadly and violates an employee’s right to work and judicial protection.
Why the court did not require an exact list of misconduct
The Constitutional Court noted that existing legislation already sets requirements for the moral conduct of employees performing educational duties. In particular, there are specific rules on pedagogical ethics and liability for violating them.
“The concept of ‘immoral misconduct’ is inherently evaluative, so its meaning cannot be exhaustively defined through a closed list of actions. Assessing such misconduct requires taking into account the circumstances of the specific case, as well as the social, cultural and professional context,” the court said.
What the Constitutional Court decided
Following its review, the court concluded that the concept of “immoral misconduct” has sufficient legal certainty and allows the relevant provision to be applied while taking into account the circumstances of each individual case.
The Constitutional Court also noted that the applicant had made use of the legal mechanisms available to protect her rights by appealing to the conciliation commission and the courts.
As a result, the court did not find the challenged provision unconstitutional.