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Fidelis Munyoro
Chief Court Reporter
THE Supreme Court yesterday reserved ruling in the case in which former Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) chief executive officer Happison Muchechetere is challenging his dismissal from employment.
Muchechetere was convicted of seven counts of misconduct, including financial mismanagement and unlawful acquisition of an outside broadcasting van following a disciplinary hearing by the public broadcaster.
Through his lawyer, Professor Lovemore Madhuku, Muchechetere accused the broadcaster of prematurely firing him before the disciplinary authority had completed the hearing.
The lawyer also attacked the conduct of the employer to charge Muchechetere under a contract that had expired.
“It was improper and outside the scope of S/I (Statutory Instrument)15/2006 to charge an employee for acts purportedly committed under a contract that had ended nor is it permissible to combine, in the same proceedings, alleged acts of misconduct relating to an expired and subsisting contract of employment,” argued Prof Madhuku.
The court also heard that it was not the disciplinary authority that imposed the penalty of dismissal.
Prof Madhuku told a three judge-panel that the employer imposed the penalty of dismissal before its own appointed disciplinary authority had decided on the appropriate penalty.
“The first respondent usurped the responsibility of its own disciplinary authority and completed the proceedings itself,” he said.
“It is unlawful for the employer to split the disciplinary process into two phases, namely conviction and sentence, with the disciplinary authority handling the conviction phase while the employer takes over at the sentencing stage.” But ZBC lawyer Mr Evans Moyo in his counter submissions argued that the employer discharged its onus of proving Muchechetere’s guilt on a balance of probabilities.
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