Morrisey, Francis G.,Ezenwa, Anne Marie.2009-03-232009-03-2320002000Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 61-03, Section: A, page: 1137.9780612482012http://hdl.handle.net/10393/8514http://dx.doi.org/10.20381/ruor-7347In the book of Genesis we read that God created man in his own image, in the image of God be created him: male and female he created them. It is the teaching of the Church based on this biblical fact that all human persons since they share in divine nature acquire a special dignity as children of God. This special dignity makes all human persons equal and endows them with certain inalienable fundamental rights which must be respected by all persons including civil authorities. For the Church these fundamental rights are not concessions to be "given" but innate rights which belong to all persons. Among these fundamental rights are the right to work. The Church teaches that the basis for determining the value of work is not primarily the kind of work being done but the fact that the one who is doing it is a human person. In other words, for the Church, work proceeds from the human person, provides them with the necessities of life, dignifies them, and enables them participate in God's creation and Christ's redemption. For this reason, the Church insists that the rights and dignity of workers must be respected in the workplace, so that workers must not be meant to feel that they are mere commodity to be bought and paid for (in terms of remuneration) at the whims of employers without regard to their dignity and self fulfillment. In c. 1286, 1° the Church seeks to apply its teaching on human dignity and right of workers, by requiring administrators of temporal goods in the employment of workers to apply meticulously the civil laws on tabour and social life according to the principles taught by the Church. In the light of this study, the Nigerian civil laws on tabour and social life become normative. We evaluated how effectively c. 1286, 1° can be applied in the Nigerian situation by examining the social teachings of the Church on labour, how this social teachings have been actualized in c. 1286, 1°, the Nigerian civil law on labour and social life and the application of c. 1286, 1° in the Nigerian Church. We arrived at the conclusion that the law as it presently stands in c. 1286, 1° and the values which it seeks to implement cannot be fully applied in the concrete Nigerian situation, due to some internal and external factors, such as Nigeria's peculiar socio-economic factors and inability of the law of contract to protect adequately the rights of workers. The dissertation came to end with some practical suggestions such as the need to recognize a contract of employment as a sui generis contract because the ordinary contract is inadequate in protecting the dignity of the worker.262 p.Law.Thesis