Morocco Considers Vaccine Pass Mandate for Workplaces, Sparking Debate

The idea of making the vaccine pass mandatory continues to be debated in Morocco. But even more so, the question of imposing the vaccine pass within companies is raising a lot of concerns among employers and employees. In other words, are employers entitled to prohibit unvaccinated employees from accessing the company and to impose vaccination on them for preventive purposes? For the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (CGEM) in the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, it is preferable for companies to require a vaccination passport from their employees, reports Hespress.

"The State has taken important decisions by mobilizing its financial, logistical, operational and organizational resources. The company can, in a preventive strategy to fight the spread of Covid-19 and in the search for collective immunity, request the presentation of the vaccination passport to allow access to work. It is necessary to mobilize the unions, staff representatives and the health and safety committee to make this campaign a success," explains the CGEM, stressing that "if necessary, employees who do not comply with the health emergency measures could be prevented from accessing their work."

"This opinion of the CGEM is not a legal opinion or an obligation for employers. It is a point of view and not an obligation for the time being. Until now, Moroccan jurisprudence has not yet ruled on the subject," estimates Maître Nkaira, a business law lawyer in Casablanca, specifying that "jurisprudence may consider any fault that is related to the contractual relationship with the employer, in particular the execution of the employment contract in good faith, as a serious fault."

But from a strictly legal point of view, can the refusal to be vaccinated constitute a reason for dismissal or is the employee free not to be vaccinated while respecting the imposed health measures? To this question, Maître Nkaira responds that the rights of employees must be preserved. "If the employer’s reason is a refusal of vaccination that represents a danger for the other employees and the workplace, and everything that goes with it, this can obviously be an option," the lawyer points out, adding that "this can, in the context of Covid-19, be the non-compliance, for example, with the health measures and barriers put in place within the company. Similarly, the prohibition of access to a company’s premises is not necessarily synonymous with dismissal."