The Labour Relations court in Nairobi has penalised the Jubilee Party Sh3 million for the unlawful dismissal of three of its top directors following the reorganisation of the office structure ahead of the 2022 elections.
Justice Hellen Wasilwa ordered the party to pay Mr Nicodemus Bore, Mr Peter Kahara and Mr Godfrey Lemiso Sh1 million each as compensation for unfair termination.
According to the judgment, Mr Bore was the party's director for membership development, Mr Kahara was the director of elections, strategy and political affairs, and Mr Lemiso was the director logistics. Mr Bore is now the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party executive director.
The three were sacked in October 2021 following a resolution by the party's National Management Committee to reorganise the political outfit and remove certain jobs and consultancy services. Their positions were categorised as consultancy services and the same were terminated in a communication that was passed to them by Executive Director Wambui Gichuru.
The trio sued the party, its former secretary-general Raphael Tuju and National Chairman Nelson Dzuya, accusing them of tactfully labelling the termination as restructuring to mislead them and evade compliance with the law of redundancy. The claimants denied that they were consultants and said they were full time employees. Since they did not have appointment letters of employment or payslips, they used bank statements of their salary accounts, to prove their employment by the political outfit.
While ruling in favour of the claimants, the court found that even if they were not issued with any employment letters or contracts, they submitted their bank statements to show that they were periodically paid a salary. The judge noted that their case remained undisputed because though the party denied employing them it never adduced any evidence in court.
"Mr Kahara appeared in court and testified and indicated he was also testifying on behalf of the other claimants. He did not submit the authority to testify on behalf of the other claimants in court. The claimants' case however remained uncontroverted because the respondents chose not to call any evidence," said the judge.
The party had filed a statement of response, denying that the three were its employees and said that the case was defective as there was no employer-employee relationship. It stated that even though there was a redundancy process, the same was not applicable to the claimants as they were not employees. The party told the court that it informed all its employees about the process of restructuring of the office and the redundancies.
The party said there was no contract of service entered between the claimants and the employer, and hence the party was not required to follow the processes outlined in the Employment Act in terminating their services. It said they were engaged as independent consultants as their services were sought on a need basis.
