Former employee sues SADC and wins

MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE
Staff Writer | Wednesday June 16, 2010 00:00

 

She was fired with immediate effect in 2007, and the locks to her office were changed immediately without even being given the chance to collect her personal belongings that remained inside the office.

She was also kicked out of her official home during the brutal dismissal.

However, on Friday she had something to smile about after the SADC tribunal ruled that her dismissal was unlawful.

The panel of three judges, led by H.E. Justice A.G. Pillay declared that Kethusegile-Juru's contract of employment had been unlawfully and unprocedurally terminated, ruling that she should be paid a 14 months salary, that is up to the end of her contract in September, 2009.

'The respondent should pay the salary and all the allowances and benefits accruing to the applicant from her date of dismissal on August 1, 2008 until the lawful expiry of her contract on September 4, 2009,' the judgement reads in part.

She was also awarded significant damages for moral loss. SADC-PF was also ordered to bear the cost of the case. Kethusegile-Juru, previously served as technical advisor on gender at the SADC Secretariat in Gaborone and as head of programmes of Women in Development Southern Africa awareness at the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre.

Kesitegile-Juru has also authored several publications on women, human rights and democracy.

In their ruling the SADC tribunal also recommended that SADC-PF should consider amending the rules of the handbook in order to provide for a specific disciplinary and appeal process in relation to officers of the rank and status of the applicant since the rules are not clear about the process.

Kethusegile-Juru welcomed the victory but said she felt the judges misunderstood the position of the executive committee that she served under and instead relied on the new executive committee that was made to sign some letter by her former immediate boss late in the legal process to try and justify what was now clearly a big mistake on their part.

'But I have decided that I won't let that spoil my victory, and that God and I know that what my former boss said about me were lies and the executive committee that I served under did not agree with him at all,' she says.

'My work and performance was lauded by all, including the Parliamentary Leadership Board (PLC) Advisory Board to which I reported for the work of Parliamentary capacity building. 'The Plenary Assembly Communiques bear testimony to this. And so do the reports of the donors who funded our programme, and in fact it was for that reason that the Steering Committee took it upon themselves to confirm and promote me in 2007 when they noticed my former boss was not doing it for reasons he could never explain to them'.