Supreme Court

Kenya’s highest court finds law on orders by foreign judges must be fixed with the ‘utmost urgency’

A judgment by Kenya’s apex court has found significant gaps in the law dealing with orders of foreign courts. These were discovered in the course of a judgment related to litigation being brought by seven local tea-pickers employed by a Scottish company operating in Kenya. In addition to its finding on the central issue involved, the supreme court ordered that its judgment be brought to the attention of the bodies responsible for preparing and making new legislation, with a ‘signal of the utmost urgency’ for action on developing the law to make it conform to the constitution.

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A strategy developed by Kenyan tea-pickers, suing their Scottish employers for work-related injuries, has revealed a serious gap in the law in Kenya. Five judges of the supreme court identified the gap when they dealt with an appeal related to the legal action, and they have now ordered that their decision be sent to the country’s law-makers, ‘with a signal of the utmost urgency’ to develop the law so that the gap is filled.

Conflicting principles surface in Kenyan case on judicial service commission appointments

Kenya’s highest court has delivered a decision that strongly defends the independence of the judiciary and, by extension, the independence of the mechanism by which judges are chosen, the Judicial Service Commission. It’s a watershed decision in that it will significantly change the way in which members of the JSC are appointed: the court said the president of the country had no function, not even a ceremonial one, in appointing and gazetting JSC members and that the role that the president had assumed in the past was a ‘fundamental contravention’ of the constitution.

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The litigation in this case was prompted by action of the country’s then president, Uhuru Kenyatta. During his terms of office, he developed a track record of conflict – sometimes escalating to seriously intense levels – over the relative powers of the executive and the judiciary.

Zambia’s apex court gives new meaning to contentious labour law provisions

Three judges of Zamibia’s highest court have at last brought some sense to a much-disputed section in the Industrial and Labour Relations Act. It reads, ‘The court shall dispose of the matter within a period of one year from the day on which the complaint or application is presented’, and it was introduced via an amendment to the legislation about 15 years ago. But what should happen where a matter drags on beyond the year stipulated in the law?

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The problem with which Zambia’s lower courts – the high court and the appeal court – have been wrestling, is what should be done where a case involving a labour relations issue takes longer than a year to be finalised? The law clearly states that matters dealt with by the industrial relations court must be finalised within a year of filing, but it says nothing about what will happen if the matter takes longer than this to be completed.

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