College of Law

A specialized legal article by Assistant Professor Dr. Ahmed Mahmoud Al-Rubaie on (The Penalty of Demotion between Text and Application)

Article 8 of the Iraqi Civil Service Discipline Law No. 14 of 1991, as amended, states:

(Sixth: Demotion: This shall be by written order informing the employee of the act committed. This penalty shall result in:

A. For an employee subject to laws, regulations, rules, or service instructions that adopt a system of financial grades and promotion, the employee’s salary shall be reduced to the minimum level of the grade immediately below his/her grade, with the employee being granted the bonuses they received in the grade from which they were demoted (based on the bonus stipulated in the grade to which they were demoted). They shall be returned to the salary they were receiving prior to their demotion after three years from the date of imposing the penalty, with the period spent on their last salary prior to the imposition of the penalty being rolled over.

B. For an employee subject to laws, regulations, rules, or service instructions that adopt a system of biennial increases, the employee’s salary shall be reduced by two increases, and the employee shall be returned to the salary they were receiving prior to the demotion. His salary will be reduced after three years from the date of the penalty, with the period spent being rolled over to his last salary before the penalty was imposed.

C. For an employee subject to laws, regulations, rules, or service instructions that adopt an annual increase system, three annual increases will be reduced from the employee’s salary, with the period spent being rolled over to his last salary before the penalty was imposed.

The above legal text discusses three systems for public employee salary limits. The first is the financial grade system, which is the system currently in effect. The second is the biennial increase system, and the third is the annual increase system.

What concerns us here is the financial grade system. If we analyze the above text, we find that:

1. It discusses a salary reduction based on the financial grade directly below his grade. Therefore, when an administrative order is issued to lower the grade (assuming, for example, that the employee is in the fifth grade/third stage), it must be in the form: “Reducing the employee’s salary to the salary of the sixth grade/third stage,” with his bonuses calculated based on the sixth grade, of course.

2. He will be placed in the salary of the sixth grade/third stage for a period of three full years, regardless of the nature of his service there, whether with full salary, without salary, or half salary, as our professor Dr. Ghazi Faisal believes.

3. The employee will be reinstated to his grade, taking into account the bonus he was entitled to before the demotion. The administrative order will be in the form of “The employee is reinstated to the salary of the fifth grade/third stage,” taking into account all bonuses he received before the demotion. This means that he will be returned, by law and by a clear administrative decision, not by a new promotion procedure, to the same position he reached before the demotion.

4. The rights of an employee whose grade has been demoted (except for prescribed leave that does not entail a change in his legal status or the salary assigned to him) are suspended if the employee is subject to the implementation of a disciplinary penalty against him. For example, he will not be granted study leave, as this would change his legal status during that period until the expiration of the three years specified by the law.

5. The three years spent during a demotion are considered regular service if paid in full, but are excluded from the salary scale as they are penalties subject to a special legal system.