ConCourt dismisses job cuts appeal

The Constitutional Court (Con-Court) has dismissed an application by two Zuva Petroleum managers who lodged an urgent appeal against a recent Supreme Court judgment granting employers the right to terminate their employees' contracts on notice.

In her ruling last Friday, ConCourt judge Justice Vernanda Ziyambi said the appellants had not raised any constitutional issues in the Supreme Court and as such, the ruling was above board and could not be interfered with.

Dismissing a chamber application by the two managers - Don Nyamande and Kingstone Donga - for their constitutional appeal to be heard on an urgent basis, Justice Vernanda Ziyambi commented that the main appeal was defective and that it was a nullity in terms of the law.

She ruled that an appeal can only be properly noted at the Constitutional Court when the Supreme Court is alleged to have erred in determining some constitutional issues raised before it.

Technically, the two may pursue their case as a normal appeal but Justice Ziyambi, being one of the judges who may also sit on the nine-member Constitutional Court bench to hear the appeal, found that there was no proper appeal pending.