Rutashubanyuma
JF-Expert Member
- Sep 24, 2010
- 219,470
- 911,173
ADMINISTRATION OF LABOUR LAWS STILL AT CROSSROADS!
(By Rutashubanyuma Nestory)
The new labour law was hailed as a new dawn in the administration of labour laws in Tanzania but the harsh reality remains bad habits die hard. The policy objectives of any law is to secure justice at minimum resources in terms of time, energy and other inputs but the administration of labour law has become a pantheon where the obsession to surpass some willful statistical dipstick becomes a sufficient cause to scuttle the ends of justice. The manpower costs locked during resolution of labour dispute remains a gargantuan undertaking gone unattended by labour policy makers. In one podium after another, the Court has been purring at a plethora of fictitious targets in disposing cases to meter its performance. That appraisal process is internally brewed and monitored leaving no room for external legal auditing to ensure quality rather than quantity rules the hagiographies being extolled out there. Tersely, we can comfortably say performance evaluation there has lauded the traditional mode since the new labour law was not designed to staunch past malfeasances. In old law, blue collar litigants were thrown to the political wolves but the new law has sheered the squirms of the litigants away from political vices. Though this is a step in the right direction but preplanned booby-traps still stand on the way of litigants. The old law had disputable recourse to normal courts buoyed by aberrations from the rules of natural justice but the new law is also striving to keep the ordinary courts at arms length constraining the damage restitutions. The labour Courts jurisdiction; under the new law, to award damages is seriously pared just like in the old law. In other words, a wronged party once proven by the Court can hardly extract amends from the culprit(s) beyond direct lost wages and associated remunerations. All the inputs the wronged party had seared when vigorously pursuing the ends of justice are to be pilfered from own shallow purses! On one hand, there is a craving to shrivel labour costs and make the investment environment scrumptious to would be investors but on the other hand it is an elusive perspiration to paint a rosy collage of defending a constitutional right to work. Albeit the policy intents of controlling labour costs are realistic but an ornery proclivity to condone irresponsible behaviour gone unpunished tend to stir hazing before and during resolution of labour disputes. In both old and new labour laws, manpower and supportive ware remains a nuisance wanting in the administration of justice. At the almost now defunct Industrial Court, one Judge caters as both a magistrate of first instance and a Judge at a revision stage quite contrary to law! Under the Industrial Court Act, no adjudicator at the first instance of deciding a labour dispute is permitted to gatecrash at the revision level but the Chair of the Industrial Court has been trampling the law with impunity by doubling as a Deputy Chair and Chair in both stages of hearing! Although, the law recognizes the Chair as the umpire during revision stage but once s/he has presided over at a first instance of determining the case s/he is legally estopped from presiding the revision stage of the same case. The law intended to erase any doubts of biasness flowing from determination of labour dispute at a nascent stage. All these blatant mishaps are blessed since there is no adequate number of judges to uphold the law, to the chagrin of unwary litigants. Under the new law, the number of judges has not been bulged to cope with arduous policy intents of conciliating past injustices. This flaw has piled up workload on few judicial auteurs there beckoning jerrybuilt court decisions just to keep pace with targeted covets. Many cases have been determined without the adjudicators reading the files and illegal court orders have been issued to determine cases without following the strictures of the law. With verdicts being peddled in dubious circumstances pampering employers of proven notoriety at extinguishing employees rights, perceptions of adjudicators enmeshed in pay to play miasma are proving dicey to quell and quash. Awards without reflecting at particulars of the case, terms of reference, analysis of the merits of the case and the reasons proffered by assessors define the lowest common denominator of the hitherto Chair. How decisions are being cobbled under such opaquely ambience, only the doting Chair can decode this maze.
[This writer is a public policy analyst based in Arusha.]
(By Rutashubanyuma Nestory)
The new labour law was hailed as a new dawn in the administration of labour laws in Tanzania but the harsh reality remains bad habits die hard. The policy objectives of any law is to secure justice at minimum resources in terms of time, energy and other inputs but the administration of labour law has become a pantheon where the obsession to surpass some willful statistical dipstick becomes a sufficient cause to scuttle the ends of justice. The manpower costs locked during resolution of labour dispute remains a gargantuan undertaking gone unattended by labour policy makers. In one podium after another, the Court has been purring at a plethora of fictitious targets in disposing cases to meter its performance. That appraisal process is internally brewed and monitored leaving no room for external legal auditing to ensure quality rather than quantity rules the hagiographies being extolled out there. Tersely, we can comfortably say performance evaluation there has lauded the traditional mode since the new labour law was not designed to staunch past malfeasances. In old law, blue collar litigants were thrown to the political wolves but the new law has sheered the squirms of the litigants away from political vices. Though this is a step in the right direction but preplanned booby-traps still stand on the way of litigants. The old law had disputable recourse to normal courts buoyed by aberrations from the rules of natural justice but the new law is also striving to keep the ordinary courts at arms length constraining the damage restitutions. The labour Courts jurisdiction; under the new law, to award damages is seriously pared just like in the old law. In other words, a wronged party once proven by the Court can hardly extract amends from the culprit(s) beyond direct lost wages and associated remunerations. All the inputs the wronged party had seared when vigorously pursuing the ends of justice are to be pilfered from own shallow purses! On one hand, there is a craving to shrivel labour costs and make the investment environment scrumptious to would be investors but on the other hand it is an elusive perspiration to paint a rosy collage of defending a constitutional right to work. Albeit the policy intents of controlling labour costs are realistic but an ornery proclivity to condone irresponsible behaviour gone unpunished tend to stir hazing before and during resolution of labour disputes. In both old and new labour laws, manpower and supportive ware remains a nuisance wanting in the administration of justice. At the almost now defunct Industrial Court, one Judge caters as both a magistrate of first instance and a Judge at a revision stage quite contrary to law! Under the Industrial Court Act, no adjudicator at the first instance of deciding a labour dispute is permitted to gatecrash at the revision level but the Chair of the Industrial Court has been trampling the law with impunity by doubling as a Deputy Chair and Chair in both stages of hearing! Although, the law recognizes the Chair as the umpire during revision stage but once s/he has presided over at a first instance of determining the case s/he is legally estopped from presiding the revision stage of the same case. The law intended to erase any doubts of biasness flowing from determination of labour dispute at a nascent stage. All these blatant mishaps are blessed since there is no adequate number of judges to uphold the law, to the chagrin of unwary litigants. Under the new law, the number of judges has not been bulged to cope with arduous policy intents of conciliating past injustices. This flaw has piled up workload on few judicial auteurs there beckoning jerrybuilt court decisions just to keep pace with targeted covets. Many cases have been determined without the adjudicators reading the files and illegal court orders have been issued to determine cases without following the strictures of the law. With verdicts being peddled in dubious circumstances pampering employers of proven notoriety at extinguishing employees rights, perceptions of adjudicators enmeshed in pay to play miasma are proving dicey to quell and quash. Awards without reflecting at particulars of the case, terms of reference, analysis of the merits of the case and the reasons proffered by assessors define the lowest common denominator of the hitherto Chair. How decisions are being cobbled under such opaquely ambience, only the doting Chair can decode this maze.
[This writer is a public policy analyst based in Arusha.]
