Ninety-three former employees have lost their bid to appeal a labour court decision, ending their claim for unpaid severance and allowances against the Kenya Revenue Authority.
The workers, led by Moses Chesti Chemben, had originally filed a constitutional petition in 2015 seeking substantial compensation from their former employer.
They asked for severance pay calculated at three months’ basic salary for every year of service, unpaid transport, medical and house allowances, long-service bonuses for those who had worked more than 15 years and outstanding salary increments and promotions that had been denied.
The Employment and Labour Relations Court had dismissed the petition on May 30, 2018. The appellants filed a notice of appeal on October 8, 2018—well beyond the 14-day limit—and only applied for an extension of time on April 18, 2019.
The ELRC struck out that application on May 28, 2020, finding that the delay of more than a year was inordinate and unsupported by any convincing explanation.
Before the appellate court, the workers argued they had not been in court when the judgment was delivered and that their previous advocates had failed to inform them of the outcome for several weeks.
“On the delay, the appellants submit that it was compounded by the difficulty of building consensus among 93 elderly and disparate members and the time required to raise legal fees,” the court heard.
They insisted the appeal process had started within two months of the judgment, pointing to their request for proceedings on August 1, 2018, and the subsequent filing of the notice of appeal.
“The appellants attribute the delay to the mistake of counsel and submit that the same should not be visited upon litigants.”
KRA countered that the trial judge had properly exercised her discretion. The authority noted that the workers had offered no good reason for the 11-month gap and had shown persistent neglect by failing to check on their own case for nearly a year.
It further submitted that granting an extension would cause significant prejudice, because as a public body it operates on fixed annual budgets and had already treated the matter as closed.
Delivering the judgment, the Court of Appeal found no merit in the appeal.
Justices John Mativo, Paul Lilan and Johnson Okello, calculated the total delay at 10 months and 19 days, not two months as the appellants had claimed.
The court pointed out that the notice of appeal was itself filed out of time and that the letter requesting proceedings had never been served on the respondent. Without that service, the appellants could not rely on the request to exclude time for preparation of proceedings.
The judges emphasised that the law does not prescribe a fixed maximum delay, but any delay must be satisfactorily explained.
On the argument that the advocate was to blame, the appellate court reiterated its own earlier ruling that a litigant has a duty to follow up with their lawyers and find out the status of their case.
The judges noted there was no disclosure that any of the appellants had followed up with their erstwhile advocates during the long period of silence.
Finding the explanation insufficient, the court dismissed the appeal. Each party was ordered to bear its own costs.
