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Daniel Nemukuyu Senior Court Reporter

The dispute on the proper method to quantify labour damages awarded during the Zimbabwe dollar era has spilled into the Supreme Court with a local firm contesting the conversion rate used by the Labour Court in calculating the United States dollars owing to its former workers.The Labour Court recently ordered Fleximail (Private) Limited to pay its 39 ex-workers a total amount of $340 434.

In arriving at the decision, the court employed a formula of multiplying the workers’ monthly salaries by five years. But Fleximail, through its lawyer Advocate Taona Sibanda, has filed an appeal at the Supreme Court contesting the method adopted by the Labour Court.

The company contends that the court should have waited for the legislature to promulgate an appropriate law that determines how the Zim dollar debts should be fairly calculated.

Fleximail argued that the court had no jurisdiction to rule on the matter at the time when Government was yet to promulgate a relevant Statutory Instrument.

“The court a quo misdirected itself at law by exceeding its judicial powers under the doctrine of separation of powers that found our constitutional democracy in by hastily making inroads into a clearly expressed legislative process and unduly overriding the Government’s emphasis that it was appropriate that the issue in dispute be dealt with in a normal course through the legislative process,” reads the notice of appeal.

The workers, some of whom had worked for the company for periods ranging from 25 to 46 years, were dismissed in 2005 and successfully challenged the decision at the Labour Court which, on December 10 2008, ordered that they be reinstated or be paid damages in lieu of reinstatement.

Fleximail opted to pay damages equivalent to five years’ salary and tendered a Zimbabwe dollar cheque to the workers through their lawyers, Mwonzora and Associates, after quantification negotiations between the two parties broke down.

Part of the letter accompanying the cheque read: “ In line with the judgment of the Labour Court handed down on 10 December 2008, please find herewith our client’s cheque in the sum of $12 594,77 (Zim dollar revalued), in full settlement of the amounts due to your clients.

“You will note from the computation that the amounts have been revalued and inflation adjusted to February, 2009.”

Under the leadership of Gift Bob David Samanyau,the workers ,however, rejected the cheque, arguing that the company was attempting to pay them in Zimbabwe dollars, which had been removed from circulation in February 2009.

The Supreme Court ruled that the money should be converted to United States dollars but left it to the Labour Court to quantify the damages.

The Labour Court then calculated the money using its preferred method, a decision that is now being contested again in the Supreme Court.