Chief Justice Luke Malaba, with concurrence of eight other judges of the Constitutional Court, ruled that workers whose contracts were arbitrarily terminated on notice pursuant following the Zuva Petroleum judgment of July 2015 will now be paid damages for loss of employment in terms of Section 12C of the Labour Act.
Amendments to the Labour Act which compel employers to pay damages to fired workers by taking into account the number of years served apply in retrospect. The Constitutional Court issued the judgment in a case in where Greatermans Stores and Meikles were challenging the constitutionality of the retrospective application of the law. The two companies argued that since workers were fired before the amendment of the Labour Act, as employers they should not be bound by a law that came into effect well after the workers were fired. However, the Constitutional Court ruled that the retrospective application of the law was legal.
Chief Justice Malaba said retrospective application of the law was meant to achieve fairness and justice, considering that the workers who had served for years were now poor after being sent packing empty-handed.
More: Chronicle
Malaba ndizvo ndokuti CJ uku
rambai muripo
Many companies laid off a lot of people. We see a list of the companies but these are not all. There is no mention of several insurance companies……why?? Surely how can you send off an employee without a package after working for more than 5 , 10, 15 years? #HEARTLESs
Way to go CJ……..sando dzenyu. Havana tsitsi. Why is it that no mention is made of insurance companies? Several companies fired workers on notice.