DOHA: Now that the new labour law is out, the much-awaited new sponsorship and exit permit rules can be expected soon, say lawyers.
The two laws are closely interlinked so it was necessary to amend the labour legislation first — to make way for the new sponsorship law to be issued, according to lawyers.
The amended labour law makes it mandatory for the companies covered under it to electronically transfer the salary of their workers. A new format of job contract is expected to be issued by the authorities concerned to accommodate the above changes.
The format is expected to provide guidelines for clauses to be included in the job contracts on conditions for sponsorship change and entitlement to exit permit waiver or otherwise. For this, all companies might be required to change the job contracts of all their workers and follow the new format.
It is, thus, likely that the new labour law issued last week may be implemented together with the new sponsorship law, “which is anyway expected soon”, said Yusuf Al Zaman.
Al Zaman, a prominent lawyer, recalled in remarks to this newspaper that the new labour law (No 1 of 2015) is to be published in the official gazette and then implemented. “Although the official gazette is out every month, there is no information if the new labour law will be published in its next issue,” he said.
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“Most likely its publication would be timed with that of the new sponsorship law so the two can be implemented together,” Al Zaman said. “Simultaneous implementation is quite likely because the two laws are so closely interlinked,” he added.
The official gazette is published by the Ministry of Justice and all Emiri decrees, new laws, cabinet and ministerial decisions are published in it.
“It is actually up to the Justice Ministry to decide in which issue of the official gazette they would publish the new labour law,” another lawyer said requesting anonymity.
He indirectly suggested that it is not mandatory for the new law to be published in the official gazette of this month, confirming Al Zaman’s view that its publication could wait.
Yet another lawyer said confirming that although the only thing new in the amended labour law is that all companies must now transfer their workers’ wages electronically, to facilitate that, existing job contracts of all workers would need to be changed to follow a new format.
“These clauses will be a necessary part of all employment agreements considering that the new sponsorship law will most likely leave it to a worker to agree in writing with his employer on conditions for sponsorship change and exit permit requirements,” said the lawyer.
“So all job contracts will essentially be updated to accommodate the changes expected in the sponsorship and exit permit rules, there is no doubt about it.”
According to the lawyer, speculations in the Qatari community are rife about the nature of the sponsorship changes coming in.
“Some say they believe a state authority is being created that would be the sponsor of all foreign workers and they would be delegated to work with companies,” he said.
Overall, employers aren’t happy that they bring over foreign workers and spend time, effort and money and train them and then they desert them after a fixed period in search of another job, said the lawyer.
