By William Madouk
Juba High Court, on Thursday adjourned hearing of a case between UAP Insurance Company and axed national staff, after a defense lawyer, Gabriel Anyar, failed to appear.
Plaintiff’s lawyer, Marko Reech Chan, stated that the session was pushed to Friday, November 8 because defence lawyer, Gabriel Anyar was unwell.
“The session was supposed to be today, but it has happened that the defense colleague or the advocate for the company fell sick and said he may not come,” Reech said.
“And he requested to be given up to date 8 of November. We have agreed because the sickness can come to anyone and the court agreed too,” he added.
The plaintiff’s lawyer noted that the Friday, Nov 8 session will be the submission of the missing documents.
“The session is going to be a submission for the missing data of the employees, that containing the employment contract date and [their basic] salary – these are what we are going to submit,”
Wednesday this week, the Juba High Court dismissed the UAP Insurance Company’s preliminary objection to abort the case, citing lack of substantial evidence in the firm’s legal objection and comment.
Presiding Judge Francis Amum trashed the legal objection and affirmed the continuity of the court proceedings. He further urged both advocates to present their evidence before framing the charges.
In September, the defence lawyer had tendered preliminary objection and comment on the filed lawsuit against his client – UAP management.
In his initial account presented two papers – one ordering reinstatement with another approving dismissal of staff authored by Labor Office and asked the judge to dismiss the case.
However, the plaintiff’s lawyer picked holes in UAP Insurance Company’s preliminary objection and comment in a pitting row between staff and the firm.
He cited that his statement contains a reply on what he terms as ‘contradictory documents’ that were submitted by defense lawyer and purportedly authored by the Ministry of Labor.
When asked whether axed staff had received their benefits and the case was closed by Labor Ministry – he said these are ‘baseless’ claims, adding that his clients opted for court because labor docket did not resolve the matter.
In October last year, UAP and its national employees were in dispute over unequal treatment and differing wages for nationals compared to their foreign expatriate counterparts.
That forced about 70 national staff to stage a sit-in strike, bringing the UAP business to a standstill.
UAP Insurance firm dismissed at least ten national staff for calling for improved pay. This was contrary to the Ministry of Labor’s order calling for the reinstatement of 10 fired staff.
This, however, forced the UAP National Staff Association (UNSA) to initiate a legal case against the insurance firm.
Labor verdict
Luka Nyarsuk Nason, Chairman of the Labor Advisory Council, in a letter dated September 29, 2023, asked the UAP management to also put on hold all administrative measures taken against staff.
In October, the Ministry of Labor delivered a long-awaited verdict against the pitting brawl between the UAP insurance management and national staff over unfair treatment and salary structure.
Mary Hillary Wani, the undersecretary in the Ministry of Labor on the resolution of the dispute over UAP national staff grievances, directed the UAP firm to instantly reinstate 10 national employees who were axed.
According to the labour ministry, positions for UAP staff who are physically working in Kenya will be advertised and nationalized.
However, this outlet establishes that none of the Ministry of Labor’s verdicts had been implemented by the UAP Company.