Criminal Penalties for Employers in Moroccan Labor Law:A Study of Their Specificity and Balance BetweenWorker Protection and Economic Development

Abstract

The evolution of the labor field through the diversification of its activities and methods necessitated rapid development of social legislation, leading to a genuine expansion of crimes in the labor sphere. This required confronting them through the establishment of appropriate penalties, ranging from those applicable to natural persons to those applied to legal persons. Penalties in the labor field are characterized by specific features that distinguish them from general criminal law. The nature of the legal person requires a special type of penalty commensurate with it.

Consequently, criminal law intervention in the labor field became necessary to serve as a bulwark against violations committed by employers against workers, in order to enforce respect for labor law and strengthen its imperative nature. To ensure the application of its rules, the Moroccan legislator established punitive rules that protect the worker from any violation.

However, while drafting these imperative rules, the legislator must consider the urgent need for economic investments. It must balance between protecting workers' rights from employer arbitrariness and the employer's desire for growth and prosperity through increasing project profits.

Criminal penalties in the labor field are divided into principal penalties and additional penalties. The principal penalties applicable in the labor field range between fines and imprisonment in limited cases. As for additional penalties, the Moroccan legislator defined them in the Criminal Code, including those specific to legal persons such as dissolution of the legal person and closure of the establishment, and those applicable to both natural and legal persons such as publication of the conviction judgment, prohibition from practicing commercial activity, and confiscation