Unfair and wrongful dismissal in Uganda under the 2026 amendment

1. At a glance

It is written for employees and employers navigating a contested dismissal, and the advocates and labour officers advising them, on the law as it stands after 5 June 2026. It is not a note on redundancy or sickness termination (dealt with under s.64, not dismissal) or on collective labour disputes; and a case with genuine constitutional or discrimination dimensions beyond the ordinary s.65C list needs tailored advice.

The pre-2026 case law — built on the old 'unfair vs unlawful' terminology and the now-repealed ss.72 and 74 — must be read with real care. Judgments predating June 2026 remain useful on procedure, quantum and general principle, but their statutory hooks have moved. Where this note cites older Supreme Court authority it flags exactly how the 2026 amendment has qualified it.

2. Why the 2026 amendment changes the analysis

Before 5 June 2026, Ugandan dismissal law worked backwards from a general fairness standard: s.72 asked whether the employer acted 'in accordance with justice and equity', and s.74 listed reasons that could never satisfy that standard. That structure gave employers real room to argue that an unlisted reason was nonetheless fair on the particular facts.

The 2026 amendment inverts the logic entirely. New s.64A now states the only grounds on which an employer may dismiss at all — abscondment beyond thirty days, forged qualifications, adverse-effect conduct, or a contractual ground. New s.65A then defines unfairness as pure absence from that list: 'dismissal shall be unfair where the employer dismisses an employee for any reason other than the reasons specified in section 64A.' There is no longer a residual 'justice and equity' escape hatch for an employer whose reason for dismissal falls outside the closed list.

3. Unfair dismissal under the new s.65A

Section 65A is short and deliberate. It ties unfairness directly to the four s.64A grounds and nothing else. In practice, an advocate assessing whether a dismissal is unfair should ask a single, narrow question first: does the stated reason fall within abscondment (>30 consecutive days, without the employer's permission and knowledge), forged documents or missing qualifications, conduct — on or off duty — that may adversely affect the employer's business, or a ground the contract itself identifies?

If the answer is no, the dismissal is unfair regardless of how reasonable the employer's underlying concern may have felt. Redundancy and sickness are not dismissal grounds at all under this framework — they sit in s.64 as forms of termination, with their own procedural conditions (proof of redundancy under s.64(3); a medical opinion before terminating for sickness under s.64(4)). Dismissing on a redundancy-flavoured pretext, rather than actually following the s.64 termination route, is a common way employers walk into an unfair-dismissal finding.

4. Wrongful dismissal under the new s.65B — a genuinely separate wrong

The most important structural change for practitioners is that Uganda now has two distinct, non-overlapping causes of action arising from the same dismissal. Unfair dismissal (s.65A) is about the *reason*. Wrongful dismissal (new s.65B) is about the employer's own *contractual performance* — whether it fulfilled its obligations to the employee, having regard to compliance with the Disciplinary Code in Schedule 2, whether the procedure and any contractual appeal mechanism were honoured, and the employee's own conduct and capability.

The two wrongs can arise together or separately. An employer may dismiss for a genuine, listed s.64A reason (so the dismissal is not unfair) but fail to follow its own disciplinary procedure or the Schedule 2 code (making it wrongful). Conversely, an employer may follow a flawless procedure but dismiss for a reason outside s.64A — procedurally impeccable, substantively unfair.

Substituted s.67 is the pivot between the two wrongs. It requires the employer to give reasons for the dismissal in any claim arising out of it — reasons the employer genuinely believed in at the time it acted, not reasons manufactured afterward. Where the employer fails to give reasons at all, the dismissal is now **deemed wrongful** — a deliberate drafting choice: under the old s.67 the same failure was deemed *unfair*. An advocate who reflexively pleads the old deeming into an unfair-dismissal complaint risks pleading the wrong cause of action entirely.

5. The mandatory explain-and-hear process (s.65)

Substituted s.65 is unchanged in its basic shape but sharpened in one important respect. Before deciding to dismiss, the employer must: explain the reason for the proposed dismissal in a language the employee understands (s.65(1)); allow a person of the employee's choice to attend the hearing (s.65(2)); hear and genuinely consider the employee's representations (s.65(3)); and — the amendment's new addition — give the employee **five working days** to prepare those representations (s.65(4)).

• Failure to comply with any limb of s.65 costs the employer four weeks' net pay (s.65(5)), payable regardless of whether the dismissal was otherwise justified.
• The labour officer may order the four weeks' pay in addition to any other award made on the substantive complaint (s.65(7)).
• The complaint for this specific breach must itself be brought within three months (s.65(8)).

6. Bringing the complaint and the new default remedy

A dismissed employee complains to a labour officer within three months of the dismissal, or such later period as the employee shows to be just and equitable in the circumstances (substituted s.70). A significant new restriction: a probationary employee may not complain under s.70 at all (s.70(2)) — an advocate should confirm, at the outset, whether probation had genuinely concluded before the dismissal took effect, since employers sometimes assert an extended or informal probation that the contract does not actually support.

Where the labour officer or the employee refers the matter onward and the Industrial Court finds the dismissal unfair, the remedy question has fundamentally changed. Under the old regime, compensation was the practical reality even where reinstatement was nominally available. Substituted s.70(6) now requires the Industrial Court to **order reinstatement or re-employment unless**: the employee does not want it; the employment relationship has become intolerable; reinstatement is not reasonably practicable for the employer; or the dismissal was unfair only for want of a proper procedure. Only where one of those exceptions applies does the Court move to compensation under s.77.

7. Quantifying the compensatory order (s.77)

Where compensation is the remedy, substituted s.77 fixes a floor and a ceiling for the calculation. Every unfair-dismissal award carries a **basic compensatory order of eight weeks' wages** (s.77(1)) — this component is not discretionary and is not reduced by the merits. On top of it, the labour officer may award **discretionary additional compensation**, having regard to: length of service; the employee's reasonable expectation of continued employment; the availability of comparable employment; the value of any severance allowance already due under Part IX; unpaid wages or expenses; expenses caused by the dismissal; the employee's own contributory conduct; the employee's failure to mitigate loss; and any ex-gratia payment already made. That additional compensation is capped: **not less than one month's and not more than three months' wages** (s.77(3)).

The order, once made, is executable in the Industrial Court (s.77(4)); the procedure for execution is to be set by ministerial statutory instrument (s.77(5)). Advocates acting for employees should not undersell a claim by quoting only the discretionary component — the eight-weeks basic order is owed in every successful case, independent of merit.

8. How the courts have approached dismissal disputes

The Industrial Court's pre-2026 case law remains useful on quantum, procedure and the general seriousness with which the courts treat a poorly handled dismissal, even though its statutory anchors have shifted.

Read together, the pattern is consistent even across the 2026 rewrite: courts will compensate generously for a genuinely badly handled dismissal, but they resist speculative or inflated heads of loss. The new eight-weeks-basic-plus-capped-additional formula in s.77 channels that same instinct into a fixed structure.

9. Consequences of getting it wrong

For employers, dismissing outside the s.64A grounds is not a technical slip — it is, by the plain words of s.65A, unfair as a matter of law, exposing the employer to reinstatement as the presumptive remedy and, failing that, the mandatory eight-weeks compensatory order plus up to three months' additional compensation. Skipping the s.65 hearing adds an automatic four weeks' net pay on top, regardless of the substantive merits. Dismissing for a s.65C prohibited reason — pregnancy or union activity in particular — invites both an unfair-dismissal finding and reputational exposure.

For employees, missing the three-month window under s.70 forfeits the unfair-dismissal claim unless the employee can show a later period to be just and equitable; the separate three-month window for a s.65 hearing breach (s.65(8)) can be extended only 'upon providing reasonable grounds' — a distinct and arguably narrower test. Probationary employees who mistakenly file under s.70 will find themselves shut out by s.70(2) and should be advised, instead, on any contractual claim available to them.

10. Practical guidance and drafting tips

11. Common pitfalls

• Pleading or advising on the repealed ss.72/74 framework — cite s.64A, s.65A, s.65B and s.65C instead.
• Confusing the s.67 'no reasons given' deeming — now wrongful, not unfair — with an unfair-dismissal claim.
• Assuming compensation is inevitable — the Industrial Court must now consider reinstatement or re-employment first under s.70(6).
• Under-costing a s.65 breach by forgetting the four weeks' net pay is payable on top of, not instead of, any substantive award.
• Advising a probationary employee to complain under s.70, which now excludes them by s.70(2).
• Forgetting the mandatory eight-weeks basic compensatory component in every successful unfair-dismissal case, before any discretionary addition is even considered.

12. Practitioner checklist

1. Confirm the dismissal decision was preceded by a full s.65 process: reason explained, chosen person permitted to attend, representations heard, five working days given to prepare them.
2. Identify the s.64A ground actually relied on (if any) and test it against the facts before conceding or contesting unfairness.
3. Check for a s.65C prohibited reason lurking behind the stated ground — pregnancy, entitled leave, union activity, a protected characteristic, a prior complaint, or a short reliable absence.
4. Verify the complainant's probation status before framing a s.70 complaint — probationers are excluded by s.70(2).
5. Calendar the three-month s.70 window (and the separate three-month s.65(8) window for a hearing breach) from the date of dismissal.
6. On referral, prepare the reinstatement-versus-compensation argument under s.70(6) with evidence, not assumption.
7. If compensation is in play, build the calculation from the mandatory eight-weeks basic order upward using the s.77(3) factors, capped at three months' additional pay.

13. Grey areas and points to confirm

The 2026 amendment is very new; confirm the following before relying on this note in a live matter. First, whether the consolidated text of the Employment Act at /laws/act/cap-226 has yet incorporated the 2026 amendment — if the section anchors on that page still show pre-amendment wording, treat this note's citations of ss.64A, 65A, 65B, 65C, 67, 70 and 77 as authoritative over the consolidated page until it is updated. Second, the procedure for executing a s.77 compensatory order in the Industrial Court is to be prescribed by ministerial statutory instrument under s.77(5) — check whether that SI has since been made. Third, there is not yet a body of Industrial Court or appellate case law construing the new s.64A grounds, the s.65A/s.65B split, or the s.70(6) reinstatement default — the analysis above is a careful reading of the amending Act's text, not yet settled jurisprudence, and should be revisited as decisions emerge.

14. Sources and further verification

Every statutory reference in this note is verified against the Employment (Amendment) Act, 2026 (Acts Supplement No. 6 to the Uganda Gazette No. 57, Volume CXIX, dated 5 June 2026; assented 29 April 2026; commenced 5 June 2026), read together with the Employment Act, Cap. 226 (2023 Revision) it amends. Confirm the consolidated Act page reflects the amendment before relying on any section anchor.

• Employment (Amendment) Act, 2026 — new ss.64A, 65A, 65B, 65C; substituted ss.65, 67, 70, 76, 77; repealed ss.72, 74.
• Employment Act, Cap. 226 (2023 Revision), as amended — s.57 (notice); s.92 (only remedy: complaint to a labour officer); s.93 (appeal to the Industrial Court).
• Barclays Bank of Uganda v Godfrey Mubiru [1999] UGSC 22; Hilda Musinguzi v Stanbic Bank (U) Ltd [2018] UGSC 78; Bank of Uganda v Betty Tinkamanyire [2008] UGSC 21; Uganda Development Bank v Florence Mufumba [2020] UGCA 2051; Egimu v Henly Distributors (U) Ltd [2024] UGIC 52.