Ex-Home Affairs employees at work (file Pic)
Tefo Tefo
HIGH Court judge, Justice Tšeliso Monaphathi will today decide on whether the application filed by ex-Ministry of Home Affairs employees against their former employer should be treated as an urgent case or not.
Justice Monaphathi reserved his ruling to today after the lawyer representing Home Affairs Ministry, Advocate ‘Mathabang Seteka, yesterday argued the application was not urgent as alleged by the 300 former employees.
The ex-employees in the ministry’s department of National Identity and Civil Registry lodged an urgent application before the High Court on 5 March 2017, seeking an order, to direct the ministry to consider re-appointing them to the positions they held in the ministry.
They also want the order to interdict the ministry from hiring other people than them as they alleged they had a legitimate expectation to be re-appointed after their contracts with the ministry expired on 28 February this year.
They obtained an interim order on 6 March 2017 preventing the ministry from engaging new employees pending finalisation of the application they filed in court the previous day.
The interim order was obtained by the lawyers representing the 300 former employees without the respondents being given notice – a legal principle known as moving an application ex-parte.
Advocate Seteka argued the case was not urgent because the former employees knew before the end of February that their contracts were going to expire and yet they did not approach the court.
“The Principal Secretary even convened a meeting with them in February to advise them that their contracts were about to end, but they did nothing in terms of approaching this honourable court,” Advocate Seteka said.
“They also obtained an interim order ex-parte and we submit it was not proper for them to obtain such order without giving us notice.
“What that order did was to frustrate the operations of the ministry,” she added.
But the lawyer representing the respondents Advocate, Nthati Pheko argued the matter should be heard on an urgent basis because the 300 had expected that they would be considered when appointing employees in the department of National Identity and Civil Registry.
“The respondents, in their answering papers, agree with us that the matter is indeed urgent.
“The Principal Secretary (Advocate Borenahabokhethe Sekonyela) himself says the matter is extremely urgent as the government’s operations have been frustrated by the order we obtained ex-parte.
“They cannot turn around now and say the matter is not urgent. There was a valid reason why they were not served with the notice.
“The reason was that we had learnt that weekend that some people were being telephoned to come to work on Monday the 6th of March 2017, yet there was a promise that we would be re-appointed based on our performance,” Advocate Pheko said.
But Justice Monaphathi reserved a ruling to today.
The judge said: “I reserve my decision on the points in limine (legal term meaning preliminary issues) to tomorrow at 9:30am.”
The respondents include the Minister of Home Affairs Advocate Lekhetho Rakuooane and the Ministry’s PS, Advocate Borenahabokhethe Sekonyela.
The 300 former employees were appointed on contracts in 2012. Their contracts had already been renewed twice since their engagement in 2012.
They worked as supervisors, Data Processing officers and cleaners.
