By Kusekwa Kusekwa
The Court of Appeal, sitting at Arusha, has dismissed the appeal lodged by two former Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC) employees, challenging their employer to pay them each terminal benefits equivalent to one-year salary instead of five-year salary as was allegedly under the AICC’s Group Endowment Assurance Scheme and the AICC Staff Incentive Scheme, 2014. Justices Shaban Lila, Patricia Fikirini and Sam Rumanyika ruled against Waziri Ally Mwahu and Rashidi Habibu Rashidi, after holding that the Commission for Mediation and Arbitration (CMA) lacked jurisdiction to determine the labour dispute that was filed by the two employees against the AICC.
“The arbitration proceedings conducted by the CMA were without jurisdiction, rendering the resultant award and all subsequent proceedings before the High Court null and void. The High Court could not validly exercise revisional jurisdiction over a non-existent arbitration award… “…We, in the end nullify all the proceedings and dismiss the appeal entirely. Parties could still pursue their rights if interested, subject to the law of limitation and other legal procedures involved. No order for costs, this being a labour matter,” the justices declared in a judgement delivered recently.
During the hearing of the appeal, the counsel for AICC, State Attorney, Hance Mmbando, had submitted that according to section 75(l)(a) and (b), of the Employment and Labour Relations Act, the CMA lacked jurisdiction to proceed to arbitration once mediation had failed. If mediation failed, the appropriate recourse laid with the Labour Division of the High Court, not through arbitration at the CMA. Consequently, taking the dispute to the Arbitrator and later to the High Court by way of revision was procedurally improper, Mmbando argued.
In response, the former employees had argued that any procedural errors that may have occurred were not intentional. Thus, they prayed that the Court provide proper guidance on the matter, which it did by allowing them to pursue the matter further, “if they were still interested,” in accordance with the law. In their judgement, the justices pointed out that the dispute between the appellants and their former employer was based on the AICC Incentive Scheme, a product of the collective bargaining agreement between the respondent and the Tanzania Union of Industrial and Commercial Workers (TUICO). They stated that once the CMA failed to mediate the matter, it was legally barred from proceeding to the arbitration stage.
“It follows, therefore, that the arbitration proceedings conducted by the CMA were without jurisdiction, rendering the resultant award and all subsequent proceedings before the High Court null and void. The High Court could not validly exercise revisional jurisdiction over a non-existent arbitration award,” the justices ruled. Waziri Ally Mwahu and Rashidi Habibu Rashidi, were employed by the AICC, as launderer and electrician, commencing their services in 1980 and 1988, respectively.
