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Harare Bureau
Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), publishers of The Daily News will now fork out a total of $91,000 in damages to the newspaper’s founding editor Geofrey Nyarota for unlawful dismissal five years ago. Nyarota successfully registered the award at the High Court early this month to enforce payment. He was awarded $91,000 by an arbitrator in 2012 folllowing a labour dispute.
High Court judge, Justice Esther Muremba, made the ruling at the conclusion of a five-year labour dispute which started in 2010 when ANZ summarily dismissed Nyarota after repatriating him from the United States in an arrangement that would have seen him preside over the re-launch of the newspaper, once it was registered by government, following its ban in 2003.
The company alleged that Nyarota did not have a contract when he returned to Zimbabwe in February 2010.
Nyarota took the matter to the Labour Court, which referred the case to arbitration. Arbitrator JT Mawire was required to determine whether a contract did exist between ANZ and Nyarota and, if so, whether the editor’s dismissal in May 2010 was lawful.
The arbitrator ruled in favour of Nyarota, finding that he indeed had a contract with ANZ and that the contract had been unlawfully terminated.
He obtained an arbitral award in August 2011 and in February 2012 the arbitrator quantified the award to the tune of $91,000 plus costs.
Nyarota then approached the High Court for the registration of the award in terms of Section 98 (14) of the Labour Act, as an order of the court for purposes of enforcing payment.
ANZ challenged the registration on technical grounds.
But after hearing arguments from both parties’ counsel, Justice Muremba granted Nyarota’s application for the registration of the award without hearing arguments on the merits.
She decided the dispute on the basis of preliminary points advanced by ANZ, which points were strenuously contested by Nyarota’s lawyer Advocate Fadzayi Mahere.
“In the result, the application for registration of the arbitral award is granted with costs,” said Justice Muremba.
The judge refrained herself from hearing arguments on the merits because of ANZ’s approach to the matter.
Nyarota was fired by ANZ’s Johannesburg-based chief executive, Jethro Goko, and the company’s chairman, Professor Norman Nyazema, also based in South Africa, a few days after The Daily News was re-registered by government.
This prompted Nyarota to sue the ANZ after the parties had a fallout resulting in the former’s dismissal.
The ANZ appeal against the arbitral award is still pending before the Labour Court. The hearing of the appeal before Labour Court judge Justice Joseph Musariri on July 1 was postponed indefinitely.
Adv Mahere was instructed by Doreen Gapare of Scanlen and Holderness Legal Practitioners in the matter while Adv Thabani Mpofu, instructed by Mordecai Mahlangu of Gill, Godlonton and Gerrans Legal Practitioners acted for ANZ.
Online Reporter