38 Judgment No. CCZ 2/18 Constitutional Application No. CCZ 86/15 employee whose contract was terminated on notice compensation for loss of employment could not be imposed on the employee. The employers who terminated their employees’ contracts on notice had to be treated differently from their employees for the purposes of the retrospective application of the legislation. A reasonable classification, which by definition is a differentiation of treatment of persons based on objective criteria (none of the prohibited grounds of discrimination) and ensures for the legitimate purpose behind the statute that members of the class to which the legislation applies are treated the same, protects the right to equal protection of the law. UNFAIR LABOUR PRACTICE The applicants also argued that the operation of the transitional provision infringed their right to fair labour practices protected by s 65(1) of the Constitution. It was their view that the ex post facto imposition of the financial obligation upon them to pay the employees whose contracts they had terminated on notice the minimum retrenchment package meant that the employees were being paid when they had not worked. In essence they argued that paying people who had not worked was not a fair labour practice. Section 65(1) of the Constitution provides as follows: “65 Labour Rights Every person has the right to fair and safe labour practices and standards and to be paid a fair and reasonable wage.”