Definition of internal investigation
Internal investigation (التحقيق الإداري), also called a disciplinary investigation, is the procedure by which an organisation establishes what has been alleged against an employee before it takes any decision about them. The employee is told what is alleged against them and is questioned, their defence is investigated, and all of this is recorded in writing.
Why internal investigation is a condition, not an option
Article 71 of the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) bars the imposition of any disciplinary penalty on a worker until the employer has done four things:
- notified the worker in writing of what is alleged against them;
- questioned the worker;
- investigated and established the worker’s defence; and
- recorded all of this in a minute placed in the worker’s own file.
The four steps come before any penalty, not alongside it or after it. An internal investigation is therefore not an optional preliminary to a decision that has already been taken. It is what makes the decision meet the condition that Article 71 of the Labor Law sets for it.
The wording of the third step matters. Article 71 of the Labor Law requires the employer to investigate the defence, not merely to listen to it. Hearing the employee out covers the questioning; the third step asks for more, namely that what the employee puts forward in their defence is examined.
Article 71 of the Labor Law then adds one exception, and it concerns the form of the questioning only. In minor violations whose penalty goes no further than a warning, or a fine deducting no more than one day’s wage, the questioning may be oral, provided that this is recorded in the minute. The exception does not reach suspension, a larger fine, the withholding or deferral of a raise, the deferral of a promotion, or dismissal, and on the oral route the minute is still required. How the exception works for a warning given by word of mouth is examined under verbal warning.
Article 71 of the Labor Law states a duty that the employer must meet before a penalty is imposed. It does not state what follows where a penalty is imposed without those steps, and the definition of internal investigation draws no rule on that question.
What makes an internal investigation more than a formality
- It comes before the decision, not after it. A minute written after the penalty has been imposed documents the penalty; it does not investigate anything.
- The employee is told the specific facts. An employee who does not know what has been alleged against them cannot defend themselves against it.
- The employee is given a real chance to reply. That means enough time to answer, not a question put in a corridor. Where the oral route described above is open, the reply is still recorded in the minute.
- What the employee said is written down as they said it. It is not replaced by a summary composed by the person conducting the investigation.
- The minute is signed. If the employee declines to sign, the refusal is recorded in the minute itself.
Who conducts an internal investigation
The safer course is for no single person to receive the report, investigate it and take the decision. Keeping those three roles apart is what makes the result credible within the organisation, and it is the same separation on which corporate whistleblowing rests.
Where the matter concerns a department that human resources itself supervises, the separation matters more, not less.
What an internal investigation produces
An internal investigation ends only with a declared outcome. The outcomes include these:
- The violation is proven. The penalty provided for it in the Labor Law or in the organisation’s approved work regulation is then imposed.
- The violation is not proven. The file is closed, and the employee is told so.
- The cause turns out to lie in a process, not in a person. The process is then corrected.
Ending an internal investigation without a declared outcome can be worse than never opening one, because it leaves the employee under the weight of an allegation that has not been settled.
The two sources of the penalty in the first outcome are those of Article 67 of the Labor Law, which bars the employer from imposing any penalty not provided for in the Labor Law or in the work regulation.
Where the outcome is a penalty, the employee is told of it in the form the Labor Law sets. Article 72 of the Labor Law requires that the worker be notified in writing of the decision imposing the penalty, and, if they refuse to take delivery of it or are absent, that the notice be sent by registered letter to the address shown in their file. The same article then opens a written grievance to the competent body at the employer and, after it, an objection before the labour courts, each within its own period. How that route is assigned to a body inside the organisation is examined under ombudsman.
What is kept from an internal investigation
The minute is placed in the employee file, together with whatever it relied on. Article 71 of the Labor Law names the worker’s file as the place where the minute is kept.
These are documents about one identified person. Access to them is therefore restricted to those who need them for a stated purpose, and it is not extended to everyone who has access to the files.
The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 67 (no penalty outside the Labor Law or the work regulation), Article 71 (the procedure before a penalty, and the oral questioning exception) and Article 72 (written notification of the penalty, the grievance and the objection). Royal Decree M/44 amended a number of provisions of the Labor Law, among them Article 72 of the Labor Law, and the route summarised above is that article as amended. That decree did not amend Articles 67 or 71 of the Labor Law.
This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.
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