Eleven Steward Bank employees, who took their employer to the Labour Court demanding payment of their salaries and benefits withheld by the financial institution pending retrenchment, have lost their case.
BY CHARLES LAITON
The employees, Nisbert Denga and 10 others, who were all represented by Selby Hwacha, had filed a Labour Court application against the bank accusing it of infringing their rights.
Labour Court judge Justice Godfrey Musariri ruled in favour of the bank last Friday after the financial institution’s lawyer, Advocate Taona Sibanda, argued that the Labour Court had no jurisdiction to handle constitutional matters.
“Nowhere in the Labour Act (Chapter 28:01) is the Labour Court empowered to issue declaratory orders and interdicts,” Sibanda said.
However, Justice Musariri ruled in favour of the bank saying the Labour Act did not provide jurisdiction in matters of the acquisition of property whether lawful or unlawful.
Musariri said: “Therefore, the applicants’ case comes to grief upon the plank of the said Section 172 (2). In any event, the applicants could have directly approached the highest court, the Constitutional Court, using their interpretation of ‘a court’ under Section 85 (1) of the Constitution to seek the relief they desire.”
