Legal challenge to the government decree reducing the minimum daily wage

Three months after the Cabinet issued a decree to reduce the daily minimum wage of daily workers from 30 to 26000 (http://bit.ly/2cjzq3V ), the Legal Agenda, Citizens in a State movement and the National Federation of Trade Union of Workers and Employees in Lebanon (FENASOL), lodged two weeks ago a request to the Constitutional Council to challenge this decree and freeze its implementation.  The Council is supposed to consider this request during the coming to weeks according to the As Safir newspaper.  The three concerned parties organised a press conference at the Legal Agenda premises yesterday and noted that the said decree poses a dangerous precedent since it is in clear violation of fundamental local and international standards used to set minimum wages and is also in violation of the of the principles of decent work as well as ensuring that minimum wage is not decreased.  In the same vein, the lawyer of Citizens in a State, Mireille Najem Shukrallah, noted that setting up a minimum wage is not a haphazard matter but is done according to the rules and provisions set by clause 2 of law 36/67 of the labor law.  This, according to her, is intimately linked with cost of living indicators based on accurate studies and statistics.  She concluded that this decrease in minimum wage is in clear violation of all these principles notably the need to ensure that the wage is sufficient to cover basic needs.  The decision is also in violation of the principles of the sanctity of aquired rights. (Al-Safir, Al-Akhbar 17 september 2016)