BY JAMES MUTASA

The Supreme Court of Zimbabwe recently struck off the court roll, a fatally defective appeal which was appealing against an employee favorable Labour Court judgment by Peace Security Private Limited.

‘‘After reading documents filed off record and hearing counsel it is ordered by consent that the matter be and is hereby struck of the roll with no order as to costs for the reason that the appeal is fatally defective,’’ reads the Supreme Court judgment by judges Elizabeth Gwaunza, Lavender Makoni and Hlekani Mwayera who presided over the matter.

Peace Security was appealing to the Supreme Court against a Labour Court judgment passed by Justice Lillian Hove who had ruled that the security company had unfairly dismissed 12 employees.

Hove had dismissed Peace Security’s application for condonation for late noting a review, appeal on the basis that the application had slim chances to succeed.

‘‘On the merits of the case, the applicant alleged that the respondent and his colleagues were employed on a fixed term contract. There was no legitimate expectation. Reliance for this proposition was placed on the case of UZ v Shamuyarira, no citation was given in the oral submissions and the case is not cited in the applicant’s heads,’’ reads part of the Hove judgment.

‘‘The court was thus not persuaded by the applicant’s unsubstantiated averments. The facts of this matter differ from all the other cases on fixed term contracts that the Court has been referred to in that in all those cases the contracts had been terminated by effluxion of time. In casu however, when the contracts were terminated, the fixed period of the contracts had not expired.’’ she went on.

‘‘After reading documents field of record and hearing parties it is ordered that the application for condonation being without merit it and is hereby dismissed,’ Hove concluded.

In the notice and grounds of appeal to the Supreme Court Timothy Chinyanganya of Madzivire Attorneys on behalf of Peace Security Private Limited had argued among other things that the labour court had erred at law further failing to consider utilize its powers in terms of the law to hear the matter before it on the merits as opposed to determining the technical issues.

‘‘The court erred in dismissing an application for condonation for late noting of a review, an appeal when there was before it an application for condonation and reinstatement of an appeal,’’ argued Chinyanganya in the notice of appeal to the supreme court.

According to Cremio Mabauwa, one of the dismissed employees, Peace Security also engaged one Regina Mabwe, an advocate, as a measure to beef up their legal team had unfairly dismissed 12 employees who were providing guarding services to the United States Embassy despite a provision in the dismissed employees contracts of employment stating that the contract would be renewed if the client, (United States Embassy) did not terminate its contract with Peace Security.

Mabauwa told the Worker that Peace Security (Pvt) Ltd had terminated their contract of employment despite the fact that they had initially agreed that their contract of employment where renewable should if the contract between Peace Security and United States Embassy existed.

‘‘After the unfair termination we referred the matter to the Designated Agent of the NEC for the security industry Patience Chitsika who ruled that the contracts were unlawfully terminated,’’ Mabauwa said.

Peace Security Private Limited had dismissed 12 employees arguing that their contract of employment expired. The affected employees referred the matter to the National Employment Council for the Security Industry where the Designated Agent Patience Chitsika ruled in favour of the employee, resulting in the employer unsuccessfully appealing to the Labour Court.