The MLC Appendix A5-I items inspected and approved before certification, and the reach of an inspector's document request

Say a ship you have just taken into management is facing its first Maritime Labour Certificate inspection. Can you know in advance what the inspector will look at. MLC, 2006 answers that question with a list. Appendix A5-I sets out in sixteen lines what has to be inspected and approved before the certificate is issued.

Having a list means the scope is closed. The sixteen lines, though, do not sit in one place inside a company. Personnel, payroll, crewing, shipboard equipment and contracts each hold a piece of it.

This article maps that list onto the records a company keeps in separate places, and asks how far an inspector may reach into them.

The Appendix asks for approval, not only inspection

The working and living conditions of seafarers that must be inspected and approved by the flag State before certifying a ship in accordance with Standard A5.1.3, paragraph 1:

There are two verbs. inspected and approved. It does not end with an inspector looking and moving on. The flag State has to approve before the certificate is issued. And the moment is pinned down as before certifying a ship. It is a gate that sits ahead of certification.

The list runs as follows.

• Minimum age
• Medical certification
• Qualifications of seafarers
• Seafarers’ employment agreements
• Use of any licensed or certified or regulated private recruitment and placement service
• Hours of work or rest
• Manning levels for the ship
• Accommodation
• On-board recreational facilities
• Food and catering
• Health and safety and accident prevention
• On-board medical care
• On-board complaint procedures
• Payment of wages
• Financial security for repatriation
• Financial security relating to shipowners’ liability

Each line names a subject the Convention has already settled somewhere else. The Appendix creates no new obligation. It picks out of the existing ones what has to be verified before the certificate goes out, and gathers those in one place.

The inspector reads the Convention and the ship’s DMLC side by side

1. Each Member shall maintain a system of inspection of the conditions for seafarers on ships that fly its flag which shall include verification that the measures relating to working and living conditions as set out in the declaration of maritime labour compliance, where applicable, are being followed, and that the requirements of this Convention are met.

Standard A5.1.4 paragraph 1 puts two layers on the inspection. One is whether the requirements of the Convention are met. The other is whether the measures set out in the DMLC are actually being followed.

The second layer differs from ship to ship, because what it tests against is not the Convention text but a sentence written into that ship’s own document. If the DMLC says rest hours are recorded daily and signed by the seafarer, the inspector holds up that sentence and looks for the signature. That holds even though the Convention text says nothing about a signature.

One dividing line comes out of this. Where the measures written into the DMLC run ahead of what the ship actually does, a deficiency remains because of that sentence even though the Convention is being met. Appendix A5-I fixes what gets looked at, and the DMLC states how that ship keeps it.

The sixteen lines split into what attaches to a person and what attaches to a ship

This is why the list cannot be prepared in one pass. Each line attaches somewhere different.

Line of Appendix A5-I	Where it attaches
Minimum age, medical certification, qualifications of seafarers, employment agreements, hours of work or rest, payment of wages	To each seafarer
Manning levels, accommodation, recreational facilities, food and catering, medical care, health and safety, complaint procedures	To each ship
Use of a private recruitment and placement service, financial security for repatriation, financial security for shipowners’ liability	To a company contract

The six lines that attach to a seafarer are rebuilt whenever the crew changes. One seafarer joining brings a date of birth, a medical certificate, qualification certificates, an employment agreement and rest hour records along with the person. One seafarer leaving takes that person’s five items out with them.

The seven lines that attach to a ship hold once they are in place until the next inspection. Equipment, stores and written procedures live here.

The three lines that attach to a contract are not on the ship. They are in the office. What an inspector can see on board is a copy. Where no copy was placed on board, the check on those three lines does not finish on the ship.

An inspector may require books and certificates to be produced

(c) to require the production of any books, log books, registers, certificates or other documents or information directly related to matters subject to inspection, in order to verify compliance with the national laws and regulations implementing this Convention;

This sentence sits in Guideline B5.1.4. It is not mandatory. It is guidance the flag State takes into account. Standard A5.1.4 paragraph 7, however, already gives inspectors the power to carry out any examination, test or inquiry they consider necessary. The Guideline is where that power is spelled out into what it actually calls for.

Other items in the same Guideline widen the reach further. Boarding freely and without previous notice, questioning the master, seafarers, the shipowner and the shipowner’s representative, and taking samples of drinking water, provisions and materials for analysis. That last item runs straight into the food and catering line of the Appendix.

When a sample is taken, the shipowner or the representative is notified or present, and the inspector records the quantity. The reach is wide, and a procedure is attached to it.

When a deficiency turns up, notification comes first

(f) following an inspection, to bring immediately to the attention of the shipowner, the operator of the ship or the master, deficiencies which may affect the health and safety of those on board ship;

The word attached is immediately. Nobody waits for the report. The recipients are named as three: the shipowner, the operator of the ship, the master.

Standard A5.1.4 paragraph 7 then goes one step further. The inspector may require that a deficiency is remedied. And where there are grounds to believe the deficiency is a serious breach of the requirements of the Convention, or a significant danger to seafarers’ safety, health or security, the inspector may prohibit the ship from leaving port until the necessary actions are taken.

The step after that belongs to the flag State.

17. Adequate penalties and other corrective measures for breaches of the requirements of this Convention (including seafarers’ rights) and for obstructing inspectors in the performance of their duties shall be provided for and effectively enforced by each Member.

Two things are named as targets of the penalties. Breaches of the requirements, and obstruction of inspectors in their duties. The second one being written out separately means that failing to answer the document request seen above is itself a target. The list, the powers and the penalties run in a single line.

Worth confirming

The passages above come from printed pages 88 to 91 and page 102 of the consolidated MLC, 2006 (including the 2022 amendments). Appendix A5-I and Standard A5.1.4 are mandatory; Guideline B5.1.4 is not. What has to be in place under each of the sixteen lines is filled in by flag State law.

What the flag State has written into the DMLC for that ship, whether inspections have been authorized to a recognized organization, and whether inspectors arrive without previous notice are where the actual preparation starts.