The Applicant was employed by the Respondent as a driver until June 2016 when he was dismissed from employment. This was following a disciplinary process convened in terms of Statutory Instrument 15 of 2006. The Applicant was facing charges arising from allegations that he had pre-warned illegal fuel dealers of the impending spot-checks or inspections by the Respondent’s officials thus by doing he was frustrating his employer’s regulatory role. The Applicant was found guilty of the charges. His initial appeal to the Respondent’s Appeals Officer was dismissed for lack of merit on 18 July 2016. More
Appellant appealed to this Court against his dismissal from employment by Respondent. His Heads Of Argument summarised the case as follows;
“1. It is respectfully submitted that Respondent errored (sic) in dismissing Appellant on allegations of incompetence because (to) the job was not done by three surveyors – namely H Chitonje, A Pazvakavambwa and M Mapfumo.
Respondent did not dispute that according to the record of minutes of hearing.
2. We further submit that according to minutes, of (which) it is alleged that Appellant has for a long time been counselled on his shoddy work performance but there is no... More
On 22 October 2015 this matter was postponed sine die at the instance of the appellant. Since then the appeal has not been prosecuted giving rise to the impression that the appeal has been abandoned. In terms of section 89 (2) (a) (i) of the Labour Act the court in the exercise of its many functions may decide an appeal on the basis of papers filed of record. It is in the spirit of the above quoted section that the instant judgment is written to dispose of the appeal which was postponed sine die on 22 October 2015. More
As one of his grounds of appeal, Appellant raised the issue of the use of incorrect Code of Conduct. The ground reads:-
“a. We submitted to the hearing committee that we have grave reservations about their employ of the Interfresh Code of Conduct in bringing charges of misconduct against the Appellant.
Our reasoning was based on the mere fact that Section 3 of the Interfresh Code of Conduct provides the following.
The Code of Conduct is applicable to all employees of Interfresh Limited … Managerial up to Senior Management (B1) and none managerial. Employees in grades A4 up to A1... More
