Whither dismissal law?

The 30th anniversary of the enactment of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 (LRA) provides a useful opportunity for reassessing the dismissal law established by the Act. This article examines the state of dismissal law with reference to three key features: the labour dispute resolution regime created by the LRA; the role of the common law in dismissal matters; and the current legislative location of dismissal based on unfair discrimination. The article also questions the continued validity of some of the modalities in the LRA supporting these features. While concluding that there is nothing wrong with the fundamentals of current dismissal law, both in respect of its treatment of substantive and procedural fairness, and in respect of the dispute resolution model that supports it, the article argues that the changing nature of employment and the pressures on the dispute resolution institutions created by the LRA require a change to some of the modalities of dismissal law. Taking a long view – 30 years – of dismissal law, the article makes tentative proposals that might make dismissal law more agile and responsive to the changing nature of employment.