{"id":25890,"date":"2026-11-03T19:51:46","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=25890"},"modified":"2026-11-03T19:51:46","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:51:46","slug":"drug-dismissal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/drug-dismissal\/","title":{"rendered":"National Council for Human Rights calls for review of law dismissing employees over drug tests"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, November 3, 2026, the National Council for Human Rights issued a policy paper<\/a> assessing the impact of Law No. 73 of 2021 on the conditions for holding or continuing in jobs, known as the law on dismissing employees who use drugs, after more than four years of implementation. The council recommended creating parallel paths for treatment, rehabilitation and professional reintegration for those proven to have used drugs, rather than relying only on permanent loss of the job, and ensuring that the penalty is proportionate to the case.<\/p>\n

The paper drew on a broad session that brought together representatives of the government, parliament, professional unions and civil society, on an analysis of 121 responses to a questionnaire on experiences of applying the law, and on a hearing with people to whom the law was applied or who were affected by it. Its recommendations<\/a> also include strengthening safeguards for the soundness of testing and analysis procedures, informing workers of their rights, activating more effective and impartial grievance and review mechanisms, and taking into account the economic and family effects of losing income. The council said that “protecting the public interest and safeguarding human rights are not conflicting goals, but complementary ones,” and that it will continue dialogue with the legislative and executive authorities on the recommendations.<\/p>\n

The law<\/a> provides for suspending an employee from work for up to three months with half of their pay withheld if a preliminary test is positive, then terminating their service if a confirmatory test confirms the result. Zawia3 documented, in an earlier investigation<\/a>, testimonies of workers dismissed under the law.<\/p>\n

Photo: MusikAnimal via Wikimedia Commons<\/a> (CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Council for Human Rights urged amending the drug-test dismissal law, with treatment, reintegration and proportionate penalties instead of job loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":25886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20481],"tags":[21590,21589,21588,12993,21591],"kateb":[710],"class_list":["post-25890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-brief","tag-dismissal-of-employees","tag-employee-drug-testing","tag-law-73-of-2021","tag-national-council-for-human-rights","tag-state-administrative-apparatus","kateb-zawia3-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/drug-dismissal-en.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25890","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=25890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25948,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25890\/revisions\/25948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25890"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=25890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}