{"id":17283,"date":"2025-09-26T12:42:49","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T10:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=17283"},"modified":"2026-10-07T22:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T20:22:07","slug":"a-constitutional-challenge-offers-hope-to-workers-dismissed-after-drug-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/a-constitutional-challenge-offers-hope-to-workers-dismissed-after-drug-tests\/","title":{"rendered":"A Constitutional Challenge Offers Hope to Workers Dismissed After Drug Tests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahmed Mohamed never imagined that 23 years in the petroleum sector would end abruptly, depriving him of a steady income and his family of financial security. The shock consumed their savings, forced them to sell possessions and left them in debt. His son abandoned his university ambitions to become the family\u2019s breadwinner.<\/p>\n

A workplace accident in 2010 left Ahmed with an assessed disability of 25 per cent. He says he subsequently received regular treatment through his company\u2019s medical network, including strong painkillers such as tramadol, officially prescribed for chronic bone problems.<\/p>\n

After Law No. 73 of 2021, commonly known as the drug-use dismissal law, was introduced, Ahmed submitted medical records and asked that his condition be documented alongside his drug test. He says the records were not attached and the result was positive for tramadol.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI told the medical director what had happened. He reassured me: \u2018Sign the report and we will sort it out with forensic medicine.\u2019 I asked to go to forensic medicine immediately, but he refused and said everything would be resolved later. I signed. Then the result was confirmed as positive and I was dismissed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ahmed appealed to the medical department, the company chair and the petroleum workers\u2019 union. He says the chair acknowledged the injustice but refused to intervene for fear of penalties. Ahmed recalls being told: \u201cI know you have been wronged, but there is nothing I can do. I care about you, but not more than myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article 6 of the law provides for imprisonment, a fine of EGP 100,000\u2013200,000, or either penalty, for deliberately allowing a person proven to use drugs to take or remain in a covered job.<\/p>\n

Ahmed had been preparing for spinal surgery shortly before the test. Instead, his salary stopped while loan repayments and other commitments continued. He says he also lost access to his end-of-service payment and occupational pension.<\/p>\n

He tried working for a private contractor, but his health prevented him from completing a full day. He sold his car, then family jewellery, exhausting money saved for his daughters\u2019 marriages to meet bank instalments. His siblings now contribute monthly to support the family. His son, unable to afford the tutoring needed to pursue engineering, gave up university and took a private-sector job.<\/p>\n

Ahmed calls the law \u201ccareer slaughter\u201d. He asks how an employee can lose a livelihood without an adequate opportunity to defend himself, and says a constitutional challenge has become essential for the many workers facing the same fate.<\/p>\n

Mohamed Salah, a low-voltage technician at South Cairo Electricity Distribution Company, was awaiting promotion in mid-2025 when a routine test on 31 May returned positive. He denies drug use.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe committee from the addiction-treatment fund told me that if I went to forensic medicine I would lose my chance of returning to work,\u201d he tells Zawia3. \u201cI refused their advice. Giving in would mean admitting to something I had not done.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he formally sought forensic review on 26 June. Before the confirmatory result arrived, he was suspended for three months on half pay. On 20 July, he was dismissed, with no further salary. Prospective employers, he says, ask why he left his previous job and will not accept his explanation that the result was wrong.<\/p>\n

Like other dismissed workers, he faces outstanding bank loans, litigation and fears of imprisonment. \u201cWe are fighting on many fronts at once,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Mohamed says he has undergone several knee operations and was taking medication for bone and chest conditions shortly before the test. He alleges that his request to attach the prescriptions to the sample report was refused. He now needs investigations for persistent bleeding but cannot afford the recommended stomach and colon examinations. He fears a serious illness without having the means to find out what is wrong.<\/p>\n

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Lives under financial and psychological pressure<\/h2>\n

Mohamed describes dismissal as akin to a death sentence. He recalls a colleague who died the previous month while arrangements were being made for state-funded heart surgery, and attributes the colleague\u2019s deterioration to grief and pressure.<\/p>\n

Mohamed Youssef, a 45-year-old engineer with more than 23 years in a petroleum company, was preparing to become a department head when he travelled to Cairo for a promotion-related drug test in April 2023.<\/p>\n

He describes a chaotic testing centre and says he never provided a urine sample. After an argument over a nurse\u2019s treatment of employees, he says, he was told to wait aside and was never called back. At the end of the day, he discovered that a report accusing him of sample tampering had been filed.<\/p>\n

Youssef obtained another test at a government hospital at his own expense. He says it was negative, but the company refused to accept it and dismissed him. Under Article 5 of Law 73, proven deliberate refusal or evasion of testing without an acceptable excuse is grounds for termination.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had worked there since 2000, first on temporary contracts for eight years, then as a permanent employee from 2008 until my dismissal in 2023,\u201d he says. \u201cEverything I built collapsed. I supported my mother, my sister and my children, and suddenly had no income.\u201d<\/p>\n

He found informal factory work to feed his children but says others have been unable to find an alternative. He describes colleagues\u2019 deaths and severe distress while banks pursue outstanding salary-backed loans. He argues that even proven misconduct should be met with a proportionate sanction and an opportunity for treatment rather than immediate loss of livelihood.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cA person should not be judged by one mistake, but by their whole working life. I served my company for more than two decades without disciplinary penalties, and this is how it ended.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Youssef believes the law is unconstitutional and says the dismissal stigma has kept him out of formal employment, leaving him without insurance or employment rights. The constitutional challenge has restored some hope, he adds.<\/p>\n

Petroleum-sector employee Abdel Hamid Mohamed describes a similar shock. His salary was his family\u2019s sole income and secured a bank loan. He denies using cannabis and alleges that his sample was mixed up during a crowded session involving 213 people.<\/p>\n

After dismissal, he could no longer pay for his daughter\u2019s wedding preparations, and her engagement ended. He was also unable to support his son after military service. He sold his car and other belongings but could not clear the debt and now faces a bank lawsuit. He considers the constitutional case the family\u2019s last hope after expectations of parliamentary amendments came to nothing.<\/p>\n

Moshira Sami, the wife of another dismissed employee, says her husband had worked for 19 years in a Finance Ministry body when he was notified of a promotion about three years earlier. A drug test was required ten days later.<\/p>\n

She describes employees arriving from different governorates together and alleges that samples became mixed up. Her husband was asked to sign a paper without an explanation. He then continued working and receiving his salary for two and a half months before receiving a suspension letter pending a confirmatory result. Two days later, she says, he was dismissed.<\/p>\n

Sami questions the delay in reporting the result. Her husband supported their three young daughters and his elderly mother, who has several chronic illnesses. She says his record was free of disciplinary penalties and that forensic review, grievances and court cases have not restored his job.<\/p>\n

What the law provides<\/h2>\n

The law requires employees to disclose medication before a surprise screening test. If the initial result is positive, the sample is secured and the worker is suspended on half pay for up to three months or until the confirmatory result arrives, whichever is sooner.<\/p>\n

A confirmatory test uses the same sample. The employee may seek review by the Forensic Medicine Authority at their own expense, subject to short deadlines specified in Article 4: a request to examine the sample within 24 hours of the result, or a clinical examination on the day of testing. A negative outcome requires reimbursement of the forensic fees.<\/p>\n

The competent body must notify the employer of the final result within ten working days of receiving the sample. A confirmed positive result leads to termination by operation of law; subsequent entitlements are determined by the rules governing the employment relationship. The law\u2019s definition of drug use excludes use justified by medical necessity.<\/p>\n

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A constitutional challenge<\/h2>\n

Labour-rights lawyer Mostafa Zaki says dismissal by operation of law bypasses the usual disciplinary process and labour-court scrutiny, leaving workers without meaningful opportunities to defend themselves. The law does not cover every company, but its scope is broader than state ownership alone: it includes public bodies and state companies as well as specified service institutions, including care homes, nurseries, schools and hospitals.<\/p>\n

Zaki criticises termination based on a confirmed test or deliberate refusal rather than demonstrated impairment at work. He argues for a second chance and greater attention to medication, medical conditions and individual circumstances.<\/p>\n

He raises concerns about collective sample collection, possible mix-ups and delays. His claims that screening accuracy is only 50 per cent and that urine becomes unusable after two hours were not supported by scientific evidence supplied for this report. They should not be treated as established medical facts or as proof that an individual test was invalid.<\/p>\n

Following permission from the Alexandria Court of Appeal in August 2025, Zaki filed a constitutional challenge to Law 73. His arguments include denial of defence rights through automatic termination, removal of judicial discretion, disproportionate penalties that fail to distinguish occasional use from dependence, and inadequate social protection or treatment.<\/p>\n

He hopes the challenge will reshape similar cases and open discussion of fairer alternatives. The consequences, he stresses, extend beyond employees to families abruptly deprived of income. Permission to bring a constitutional case, or its registration, does not itself amount to a ruling that the law is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Zaki estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 workers may be affected. This is his estimate, not a verified count of dismissals. He describes cases involving inability to provide a sample on demand, prescribed medication and participation in supervised treatment programmes, and argues that the existing system does not adequately distinguish these circumstances.<\/p>\n

He also points to safeguards in the new Labour Law No. 14 of 2025, including procedures for testing and judicial consideration. Those provisions do not, by themselves, establish that the separate requirements of Law 73 have been amended. Zaki argues that the special law itself must change to incorporate proportionate sanctions, reliable testing and employees\u2019 health and work histories.<\/p>\n

He warns that abrupt loss of income can destabilise dismissed employees, including people recovering from dependence, and calls for public and media pressure for reform.<\/p>\n

Constitutional case No. 47 of judicial year 47 was registered on 8 September 2025 against the prime minister, the parliamentary speaker, the justice minister, the prosecutor general, the petroleum minister and the chair of Petrogas. It challenges Articles 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Law 73 under a range of constitutional provisions and seeks a declaration of unconstitutionality and its resulting legal consequences.<\/p>\n

\"Page
A page from the application challenging the constitutionality of Law No. 73 of 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Rights, privacy and judicial safeguards<\/h2>\n

Zawia3 obtained documents from Alexandria appeal No. 4161 of judicial year 80, in which an employee contested termination under Law 73. His arguments included failure to comply with the statutory deadline for reporting the final result and constitutional objections concerning privacy, proportionality and the absence of graduated penalties. He also submitted a later negative test from a poison centre.<\/p>\n

The first-instance court dismissed the claim against the petroleum minister for lack of standing and rejected the claims against the other respondents. It upheld termination based on a confirmatory cannabis result and the employee\u2019s failure to seek forensic review within the prescribed period.<\/p>\n

On appeal, however, the court considered the constitutional argument sufficiently serious to allow the employee to bring proceedings before the Supreme Constitutional Court. It adjourned the case to 17 November 2025 for pleadings and deferred a decision on costs.<\/p>\n

\"Extract<\/p>\n

Extract from the documents in Alexandria appeal No. 4161 of judicial year 80.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Malek Adly, director of the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights, calls the law a serious constitutional violation affecting bodily integrity and privacy. He says its consequences have reached women, older workers and people with chronic or mental-health conditions.<\/p>\n

Adly argues that prescribed painkillers and psychiatric medicines can be implicated in disputes over testing, exposing employees to dismissal and stigma. He criticises a system that, in his view, fails to distinguish impairment on duty from evidence of a substance in the body while an employee is performing competently.<\/p>\n

He sees a stronger justification for strict testing in safety-sensitive work such as operating aircraft, trains or buses, or handling weapons and dangerous materials, than for its broad application to administrative staff, teachers and university lecturers.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cA person with addiction is a patient who needs treatment, not punishment,\u201d Adly argues.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He says one challenge failed before the State Council but hopes further judicial examination will provide redress. His criticism concerns the adequacy of safeguards and their application; the law does contain confirmatory testing and forensic-review mechanisms.<\/p>\n

Adel Amer, head of the Egyptian Centre for Political, Legal, Economic and Social Studies, says the law emerged amid public anger after transport accidents linked to drug use. He nevertheless considers its automatic employment consequences constitutionally flawed and insufficiently protective of the right to defend oneself.<\/p>\n

He contrasts it with earlier labour and civil-service procedures involving administrative investigations, disciplinary courts or labour courts. As a special law, he argues, Law 73 restricts those ordinary routes. He cites around 7,000 terminations nationwide, describing the effect as a sentence imposed on entire families. His figure and Zaki\u2019s much larger estimate of affected workers are different interviewees\u2019 assessments, not a consistent official statistical series.<\/p>\n

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Parliamentary demands and the official response<\/h2>\n

MPs including Atef El-Maghawry of Tagammu, labour-committee member Ehsan Shawky and Egyptian Social Democratic Party parliamentary leader Ehab Mansour submitted requests for information and reform<\/a>. Their demands included a second chance, treatment for dependency and disclosure of dismissal numbers, with greater consideration for families\u2019 livelihoods.<\/p>\n

MP Sanaa El-Said defends the law as a measure to protect workplaces and the public, citing transport accidents associated with drug use. She says awareness campaigns and voluntary, free treatment opportunities preceded enforcement so that employees could seek help before risking dismissal.<\/p>\n

El-Said rejects the constitutional criticism and says the law distinguishes medically justified drug use from prohibited use. Employees can submit prescriptions and medical evidence, she says, and she describes a multistage review process rather than dismissal after the first screening result alone.<\/p>\n

Asked about parliamentary demands for amendments, El-Said says she does not recall proposals to change Law 73 being debated. She distinguishes discussions of the new labour law in March 2025 from proposals directed specifically at the 2021 legislation.<\/p>\n

In an April 2025 statement, the Fund for Drug Control and Treatment of Addiction said enforcement had been underway since January 2022, covering public-sector workers and specified private institutions serving the public. Workplace committees include representatives of the fund, the General Secretariat of Mental Health and the Forensic Medicine Authority.<\/p>\n

The fund said a positive preliminary sample is sent for confirmatory laboratory testing. It asserted that the tests distinguish drug use from prescribed medicines with \u201c100 per cent\u201d accuracy. That is the fund\u2019s claim, not an independently established performance figure for every test.<\/p>\n

The statement said employees may seek forensic re-examination of the sample or clinical assessment. An initial positive result brings temporary suspension pending confirmation, followed by return to work or termination according to the final outcome. Campaigns also cover school-bus and highway drivers in cooperation with the relevant authorities.<\/p>\n

Employees who voluntarily seek treatment before testing campaigns are treated as patients and receive free, confidential care without legal action, the fund said.<\/p>\n

The dispute remains unresolved: supporters view the law as protection for public services and safety, while affected workers and rights advocates see a punitive system in urgent need of proportionate safeguards, treatment options and meaningful avenues for redress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Workers dismissed under Egypt\u2019s drug-testing law describe lost livelihoods, debt and disputed results, as a constitutional challenge reopens questions of proportionality and the right to a defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[390],"tags":[],"kateb":[1550],"class_list":["post-17283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights","kateb-aya-yasser"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/\u0641\u0635\u0644-\u0645\u062e\u062f\u0631\u0627\u062a.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17284,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17283\/revisions\/17284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17283"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=17283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}