Court Orders “Al-Bawaba” Newspaper to Pay Journalist Over EGP 71,000 in Compensation, Holding Workplace Ban Constitutes “Arbitrary Dismissal”
The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights has obtained a judicial ruling from the Specialized Labor Court of North Giza ordering Al-Bawaba News newspaper (Arab Center for Journalism Company) to pay the journalist editor Marwa M. A. a total amount of EGP 71,020 as compensation for her arbitrary dismissal and for depriving her of her statutory financial entitlements, in Case No. 925 of 2025.
The court ordered the newspaper to pay EGP 54,666 as compensation for material and moral damages resulting from the arbitrary dismissal, EGP 4,000 in lieu of the statutory notice period, and EGP 12,354 representing compensation for her accrued annual leave balance. The ruling followed years of legal proceedings arising from the newspaper’s decision to bar the journalist from accessing her workplace in August 2022 without any lawful justification.
The dispute dates back to 2022, when the journalist filed an official police report at the Dokki Police Station documenting the incident in which the newspaper’s security personnel prevented her from entering the workplace where she had been employed since June 2013. Despite the issuance of prior appellate court judgments affirming the continuation of the employment relationship, the newspaper’s management persisted in refusing to enforce those judgments and conditioned her reinstatement on withdrawing her complaint before the Labor Office. The court characterized this conduct as an abuse of authority and an arbitrary decision motivated by caprice, warranting compensatory damages to remedy the harm sustained.
In the reasoning of its judgment, the court articulated two significant legal principles. First, it affirmed the necessity of distinguishing between compensation due for unlawful dismissal—calculated at the statutory rate of two months’ wages for each year of service—and compensation for material and moral damages, each to be assessed independently. Accordingly, the court awarded the claimant two separate heads of compensation.
Second, the court held that absence warnings issued by an employer prior to effectively enabling the employee to resume work are legally null and void. It ruled that the newspaper’s attempt to issue prior notices demanding the journalist’s return to work constituted an unlawful procedure that did not affect or diminish her legal rights.
The court further confirmed that the newspaper’s continued refusal to reinstate the journalist despite binding judicial rulings constituted, in substance, a unilateral arbitrary dismissal, thereby obligating the company to return all documents and records belonging to the claimant and to issue her a certificate of experience covering the full duration of her employment
