In a guest post, David Scrooby looks at a recent constructive dismissal case in South Africa.

Introduction

In Makombe v Cape Conference of the Seventh Day Adventists and Others [2025] ZALAC 22, the South African Labour Court in Cape Town found that a pastor employed by the Cape Conference of Seventh-day Adventists had been constructively dismissed.

Ms Makombe was an erstwhile pastor of the Cape Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, an organisation with churches in the Western, Northern and Eastern Cape regions; its Administrative Centre is in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). She was a member of the Cape Conference and commenced employment with it on 9 January 2014 as a ministerial intern. Later, she became a pastor. She earned a gross salary ranging between R21,368.00 and R25,119.68 per month (about £1,000). The claim arose in circumstances where the congregants refused to accept her as a pastor because she was female, and where she was exposed to a persistently hostile working environment. The constructive dismissal claim was based on the employer’s failure and/or refusal to address her numerous grievances over a period of years, including congregants who refused to accept a female pastor due to their religious beliefs.

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