BLLAHWU presidency case back on
Oarabile Mosikare | Thursday December 4, 2014 12:07
BLLAHWU has approached the court seeking a declaratory order to the effect that Kedise is no longer a member of the applicant union. The union argues that Kedise consequently lost his presidency because his membership of BLLAHWU lapsed on account of his failure to pay his subscription fees for a cumulative period of over three months. This is in terms of clause 5.4 of the first applicant’s (BLLAHWU) constitution. The second applicant is one Baone Seloka, a member of the BLLAHWU.
In his heads of argument Kedise through his lawyer, Obonye Jonas, says: “In the premises, the court is urged to find as a fact that the applicants continue to deduct the respondent’s subscription fee from his salary on a monthly basis to this day.
We will turn to the legal implications of this conduct on the part of the applicant’s anon. Before we do so, it is important to lay down the legal framework governing the relationship between the respondent and the first applicant and between the respondent and the second respondent inter se.” Jonas argues that it is clear that the termination of the respondent’s membership can only occur once the first applicant had determined that he had been guilty of three successive absences.
“To this end, it is submitted that termination of membership in terms of clause 5.2 does not follow ex lege [operation by law]. We must also recall that clause 5.2 says that a member of the Union is excused from payment subscription fees during the time that he was not employed.
“Now, this means that there must be a functionary, structure or organ of the union that must determine each case and establish whether a member who defaulted to pay subscription fees for three months was prevented from paying by reason that he is out of employment or some other reason.
In the case of the respondent, the Central Executive Committee of the union assigned this responsibility to its secretary general to make factual findings and ‘appropriate resolutions’. We therefore submit that this process does not come close to being described as ‘operation by law’.”
He submitted that the applicants had not disclosed a course of action for the relief/s they were seeking. He said they must specifically plead that the Respondent is employed, if this is their case.
“It is not for the respondent to volunteer this information because he is not obliged to supply it anyway. To the extent that the applicants’ papers do not disclose that the Respondent is in employment, they are fatally bad for failure to disclose a cause of action.”
Attorney Joseph Akoonyatse represents BLLAHWU and Seloka.