Blow to sacked Mount Kenya University lecturer after Labour court dismisses petition as time barred
In the suit, Kigamba sought to have the case transferred from a lower court in which he is seeking Sh2.2million settlement in terminal dues following his dismissal in 2017
A former employee of Mount Kenya University John Gakinya Kigamba suffered a major blow after the Labour court dismissed his petition as being time barred.
In the suit, Kigamba sought to have the case transferred from a lower court in which he is seeking Sh2.2million settlement in terminal dues following his dismissal in 2017.
In a ruling delivered on April 30, 2025, Justice B.O.M. Manani of the Labour and Industrial Court Division declined to grant Kigamba his prayers to have the case transferred from the Thika Chief Magistrate’s Court to the higher court.
“As such, it is time barred. The suit is therefore a nullity for want of compliance with section 89 of the Employment Act.” The judge ruled.
“After evaluating the submissions by the parties and the applicable law, the court finds that it lacks the requisite jurisdiction to transfer the suit before the Magistrate’s Court, that is to say, Thika Chief Magistrate’s Court Case No, 194 of 2024, to itself for trial and determination since that suit is a nullity having been instituted outside the timelines that are set under section 89 of the Employment Act,” ruled Judge Manani.
“Going by the aforesaid, this court cannot transfer the suit to itself because it (the suit) is a nullity. As such, the court has no jurisdiction to grant the orders sought in the instant application.
As such, the Respondent’s preliminary objection succeeds and the application is struck out. Each party to bear own costs,” the court ruled.
The Judge further ruled that the general position in law is that a court can only transfer a valid suit. It cannot transfer an invalid or incompetent suit since such suit is a nullity.
He ruled that the suit which the applicant sought to transfer through the instant application was filed before the Chief Magistrate outside the set statutory timelines.
Last year, the court directed Mount Kenya University (MKU) was ordered to pay Professor Moni Wekesa Sh6.8 million for unfair dismissal.
Wekesa who teaches at Daystar University had sued MKU for illegally sacking him seeking Sh46, 172,728 in compensation for violation of various constitutional rights.
But the employment and Labour Relations and Employment Court granted the professor the equivalent of nine months’ salary in compensation for unfair termination, damages for multiple constitutional violations, balance of severance pay, all adding up to Sh6, 855,170.
This prompted the MKU to appeal and petition the court to issue temporary stay orders suspending implementation of the same during an appeal because if it wins in the appeal, the orders of the Court of Appeal may be insignificant because of the possible inability to recover the funds from the Professor. But Justice Rika disagreed.
“This petition was filed in 2016, eight years ago, and the Court has dealt with it comprehensively, fairly and to the best of its ability, and finds no reason to prolong (Prof. Wekesa’s) eight-year wait for a remedy. If there is a fault in the grant of remedy, the position can be corrected on appeal without any prejudice to (MKU),” Justice James Rika ruled.
The varsity claims the award to the professor of law was inordinately high and unfounded which Justice Rika dismissed.
Through an affidavit of its Human resources officer Stella Nzilani, sworn on April 2, 2024, MKU claimed that the trial court which granted Wekesa the amount, was in error, by granting separate remedies under the Employment Act and the constitution.
In 2023, in a separate suit, MKU was also ordered to pay Dr Catherine Wangeci Thuita, a former senior lecturer Sh4.3million after was declared redundant in February 2020.
She was awarded special and general damages amounting to Sh4.3 million for unfair termination and against fair labour practices.
“The court has considered the trauma of being sacked abruptly and the accompanying stress which is only second to loss of a loved one through death according to some research by various psychologists,” said justice Mwaure in her judgment on December 16, 2021.
“The applicant contends that on September 12, 2017, the respondent’s Human Resource Manager informed him that the university’s Finance Director had been instructed to process and pay his terminal dues amounting to Sh2,229,500.00,” the court papers read in Kigamba’s suit.
