“Failure to prove the existence of a valid, lawful and enforceable contract of employment is fatal to the reliefs sought by Sedimo,” said the union. The union, in its responding papers, explained that the ex SG did not lead any iota of evidence that suggested that a valid, lawful and enforceable contract exists as a matter of fact and law. BOPEU also submitted that in the event the applicant failed to make out a case on the existence of a contract of employment then an absolution from the instance was inevitable in the circumstance.
Still on the need for absolution from the lawsuit, the union said Sedimo has made representations to the Court of Appeal (CoA) by way of affidavit about a High Court judgement that invalidated all resolutions of the national executive committee (NEC) from the April 27, 2019 and declared them null and void. “As such, on the strength of the applicant’s own representations, he must be prevented to duck and dive and change positions before another court. As a principle of estoppel bars the applicant from making different averments from the ones he made before the Court of Appeal on the validity of his contract of employment,” said BOPEU. BOPEU argued that in Sedimo’s own affidavit, he said that all resolutions of the NEC from April 27, 2019 were null and void and those resolutions included the resolution of employment offer with the union and that at the time of filing his statement of case with the Industrial Court, he was well aware of his averment before the CoA and the judgments pronounced by the various courts.
