In June 2022, Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court ruled that terminating an employment contract without first notifying the employee about the upcoming mutual consent termination is legal, if the contract:

1. was concluded before May 2020, and
2. stipulates the employer’s right to terminate the contract without notification so long as a fixed amount of compensation is paid (as allowed under Article 50.3 of the Labor Code, which was excluded in May 2020).

Article 50.3 being in effect until May 2020 granted employers the right to terminate employment without prior notice upon payment of a fixed compensation, as stipulated in the employment contract. Upon the removal from the Labor Code of Article 50.3 the RK’s Ministry of Labor clarified that terminating an employment contract upon this ground after the invalidation of Article 50.3 does not contradict the law as long as the contract includes this ground.

That said, irrespective the explanations of the relevant ministry the court practice, including the Supreme Court’s practice, followed the line of recognizing as illegal termination that applied Article 50.3, pointing out that, among other things, presence of this termination condition in the employment contract worsens the employee’s position, in comparison with the current legislation.

This new, contradictory ruling of the Supreme Court recognizes termination under Article 50.3 as legal. It found that the exclusion of Article 50.3 per se does not impact the legality of the presence of this termination condition in the employment contract. This is indicative that court practice regarding terminations involving Article 50.3 is still being developed.

As can be seen from the above, to comply with the principles of certainty and uniformity of judicial practice there is a need to adopt a new or amend the current normative decree of the Supreme Court related to resolving labor disputes related to the invalidated Article 50.3 of the Labor Code. The effective normative decree of the Supreme Court has been updated in April 2018 most recently, therefore, its Clause 27 establishing an employer’s right to terminate an employment contract in presence of this termination condition under Article 50.3 of the Labor Code is subject to exclusion or amendment based on the court practice.

We monitor changes in court practice on labor disputes and will keep you informed of any significant trends in this respect.