35 Judgment No. CCZ 2/18 Constitutional Application No. CCZ 86/15 Trampling on the workers’ economic interests in the termination of employment on notice beyond the mere token payments equivalent to three months’ salaries or wages related to the notice period was bound to trigger socio-economic consequences with retrospective effect. There is no doubt that employers who terminated employees’ contracts on notice in the circumstances caused that which created the compelling social need for the enactment of the legislation with retrospective effect. The employers did not need to be told that the law required that labour matters must be handled fairly and justly. The Legislature must have been aware of the fact that employers who terminated employees’ contracts on notice following the Zuva Petroleum judgment did so because they believed it was cheap and easy to dispose of employees that way. In fact, the Zuva judgment was misinterpreted to mean that an employer could terminate the employment contracts of any number of employees at will. There were other provisions in the Act which prohibited the wholesale termination of employment. For example, s 12C of the Act, before it was amended, provided that the termination of employment of five or more people amounted to retrenchment and that retrenchment legislation was to apply. The need for retrospectivity of the legislation was particularly compelling in this case because the harmful consequences of the very conduct in respect to which it is claimed a vested right arose is one of those which motivated the Legislature to act. The cause of the amendment to s 12 of the Act was the social, political and economic impact of the termination of contracts of employment on notice at the initiative of employers without compensation to employees for loss of employment on or after 17 July 2015. The amendment was a direct result of those past events.