Employment law
Disciplining without slipping up: disciplinary procedure in Mali
At Djoliba Distribution, a Bamako food wholesaler with 85 employees, a storekeeper turns up two hours late for the third time this month. The warehouse manager wants to act fast: a XOF 10,000 deduction from his pay, "to teach him a lesson".
Djoliba Distribution is a fictitious company, as are the people named in this article: their names serve only as an example. The deduction, however, is a very real breach. The Malian Labour Code prohibits it without exception and without threshold, and it is exactly the kind of reflex that turns an employee's misconduct into a case against the company.
1. What are we actually talking about?
Disciplinary power is the employer's right to sanction an employee's breach of their obligations. It exists, it does not need to be written down to exist, but it is not exercised in a vacuum.
The Malian answer often surprises, because it is not where people look for it. The Labour Code describes no general disciplinary procedure. It organises no prior meeting, lists no available sanctions, sets no scale. It designates the instrument that must do so, the internal rules, and lays down two absolute prohibitions.
The Code does not tell you how to sanction. It tells you where to write it down, and how far you may not go.
2. Three texts, and they must be read in this order
| The text | What it contributes | Its force |
|---|---|---|
| The Labour Code | The framework and the limits: content of the internal rules, ceiling on temporary lay-off, prohibition of fines | Mandatory, no derogation possible |
| The collective agreement | The scale of sanctions and the branch procedure: degrees, request for explanation, deadlines | Binding on the company; may be more favourable to the employee |
| The internal rules | Application within the company: conduct sanctioned, matching sanctions, arrangements | Enforceable after approval and posting |
The Code defines precisely what the internal rules may contain: they are limited exclusively to rules on the technical organisation of work, discipline, health and safety requirements and arrangements for paying wages (Labour Code, article L.64).
Discipline is therefore one of those four subjects, and internal rules are compulsory in every industrial, commercial or agricultural undertaking employing at least ten employees (Labour Code, article L.62). With 85 employees, Djoliba Distribution is well above the threshold.
A company of more than ten employees with no internal rules has no written basis for its discipline. Each of its sanctions then rests on nothing verifiable.
3. Internal rules are not enforceable the day they are signed
That is the second surprise, and an expensive one. Drafted rules are not applicable rules. The Code imposes a five-stage route, three stages of which carry firm deadlines.
| The stage | The article | The deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Communication of the draft to the staff delegates, by a means giving a certain date | L.65 | - |
| Written observations from the delegates | L.65 | 15 days; no reply counts as acceptance |
| Transmission to the labour inspector: draft in duplicate, original observations, statement of reasons for rejections | L.66 | - |
| Approval or opinion of the inspector, who may require the removal of contrary provisions | L.66 | 1 month |
| Communication to the delegates, then posting in the hiring premises and at the workplace | L.67 | - |
And above all: the internal rules come into force twenty days after the labour inspector's approval, the date and stamp of the inspectorate on the original being conclusive (Labour Code, article L.68).
Rules approved on the 1st of the month sanction nothing before the 21st.
A sanction based on rules that have not been approved, have not been posted, or within the twenty days following approval rests on a text that is not yet enforceable. It is a purely formal weakness, and it is enough to strike the measure down, whatever the merits of the complaint. See Drafting the internal rules.
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4. The two limits nothing can cross
The prohibition of fines, without exception or threshold
An employer is prohibited from imposing fines (Labour Code, article L.69). The same prohibition is repeated in the wages chapter: no deduction may be made from a worker's pay other than those provided for by law, and the employer is prohibited from imposing fines (Labour Code, article L.121).
No monetary deduction may therefore be made by way of punishment: not for lateness, not for breakage, not for a till error. The breach is a criminal offence as well.
What remains possible is something else entirely: not paying for time that was not worked. No wage is due for an absence outside the cases provided for by regulation or agreement (Labour Code, article L.101).
Example. The Djoliba Distribution storekeeper earns XOF 120,000 a month and works 40 hours a week, that is 173.33 hours a month (40 × 52 ÷ 12). He arrived two hours late.
| The measure considered | The amount | Is it lawful? |
|---|---|---|
| Disciplinary fine of XOF 10,000 | XOF 10,000 | No: a monetary deduction by way of punishment, prohibited (L.69, L.121) |
| Not paying the two hours not worked | 120,000 ÷ 173.33 = XOF 692/h; 692 × 2 = XOF 1,384 | Yes: this is not a sanction, it is the absence of consideration |
The gap between the two lines is not merely XOF 8,616. It is the gap between a defensible measure and a breach which, produced before the court, discredits the company's entire disciplinary file.
The ceiling on temporary lay-off: eight days
The employment contract is suspended during a temporary lay-off, which may not exceed eight days (Labour Code, article L.34). And that suspension is granted without payment of wages (Labour Code, article L.38).
No collective agreement and no internal rules may go beyond it. A fifteen-day lay-off is not a heavy sanction: it is an unlawful one for its excess portion.
These two limits are the only figures the Code imposes in disciplinary matters. Everything else (degrees of sanction, intermediate durations, periods after which an earlier sanction no longer counts) belongs to collectively agreed and internal texts, and must be checked there rather than assumed.
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5. A closer look: "faute grave" does not exist in the Malian Code
This is one of the most frequent borrowings from French law, and it circulates in many letter templates used in Mali. The Malian Labour Code does not recognise serious misconduct (faute grave). It recognises gross misconduct (faute lourde), and nothing else.
It always appears in the same position: as the highest threshold. It allows termination without notice (Labour Code, article L.41), it deprives the worker of severance pay (Labour Code, article L.53), it is the only misconduct ground allowing a fixed-term contract to be ended before its term (Labour Code, article L.25), and it deprives the worker of the end-of-contract payment (Labour Code, article L.24).
Writing "faute grave" in a dismissal letter in Mali means using a word the Code does not recognise, to support a consequence that only another word produces. See Early termination of a fixed-term contract for misconduct.
The employer characterises, the judge decides. Better to characterise in the Code's own words.
6. The five requirements of a defensible sanction
They do not follow from a procedure described by the Code, but from the rule of proof that governs the whole law of termination: in the event of a dispute, it is for the employer to prove that a legitimate ground existed, and termination is wrongful in particular where the stated reason is inaccurate (Labour Code, article L.51).
- A specific, dated fact. Not "inappropriate behaviour", but what happened, when, where, and who witnessed it.
- Compliance with the applicable procedure. The collective agreement or the internal rules usually require a written request for explanation, with a deadline for reply. That time must genuinely be given, and the reply (written, or otherwise recorded for an employee who cannot write) placed on file.
- A consistent characterisation. The sanction must match the fact, on the applicable scale. Sanctioning a minor breach at the level set for the gravest departs from your own text.
- A written, reasoned decision, stating the facts, the sanction and its dates.
- Consistency. The same facts, the same sanction, for everyone. An unjustified exception weakens the company's entire disciplinary framework, not just the case in hand.
Three common-sense rules that avoid the three commonest traps
| The rule | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| One breach, one sanction | Disciplinary power is exhausted by the facts sanctioned. A lay-off followed by dismissal on the same grounds is very hard to defend |
| React within a reasonable time | A breach left unanswered for months stops looking like something the company regarded as serious |
| Distinguish misconduct from underperformance | Professional underperformance is not a culpable breach: it calls for support, not a disciplinary sanction |
7. The file to assemble, item by item
Six items, and they are gathered at the time of the facts, never two years later before the court.
- The provision of the internal rules or the agreement that covers the conduct and the sanction.
- Proof that the rules are enforceable: inspectorate approval, date, posting.
- The record of the fact: report, signed written statement, physical evidence.
- The request for explanation and proof that it was delivered.
- The employee's reply, or a note that no reply came by the deadline.
- The written decision, delivered against signature.
Where the termination is not notified in writing or its reason is not stated, the court must award the worker, to sanction the breach of formal rules, a payment of up to one month's gross salary, even where the dismissal is well founded on the merits (Labour Code, article L.52).
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Key takeaways in 6 points
- Write the scale of sanctions into the internal rules: the Code does not set it, it only frames the instrument that carries it.
- Check that those rules are approved, posted, and have been in force for more than twenty days before relying on them.
- Never impose a fine or a deduction by way of punishment: the prohibition admits no exception.
- Never exceed eight days of temporary lay-off, and impose it without pay.
- Write "faute lourde", not "faute grave": the second term does not exist in the Malian Code.
- Build the file at the time of the facts, around a dated fact, a procedure followed and a written decision.