Published: 30 May 2018

Bindura-based Freda Rebecca Mine has won its appeal to reverse a High Court ruling allowing the registration of a $1, 5 million award granted to the workers by a labour arbitrator over non-payment of allowances.

The gold mining giant had been ordered by the High Court to pay $1,5 million to 22 of its workers, who were claiming exploitation by the employer.

At the Supreme Court yesterday, the mine won on the grounds that workers had cited a non-existent entity when they approached the High Court to register their award.

Justice Bharat Patel allowed the appeal after hearing submissions from both parties lawyers.

Advocate Thabani Mpofu represented Freda Rebecca while Mr Jeremiah Bhamu represented the workers.

The court accepted Adv Mpofu's submission that the application made at the lower court was invalid because the respondent in that case was not the respondent against whom the arbitral award was rendered.

"Leaving aside the issues of validity, there was not even an attempt to change the name of the respondent before the court," said Adv Mpofu.

"An award could not be registered against a party who was not the respondent before the arbitrator."

Arguing for the workers, Mr Bhamu sought to convince the court that the High Court properly found the gold-mining company was stopped from denying its existence as a party against whom the process could be validly issued against.

"The court a quo correctly found that the citation of the parties could be changed after registration of the award without affecting the validity of the process already undertaken," said Mr Bhamu.

Justice Patel, however, found merit in Adv Mpofu's submission quashed the lower court's decision.

Justices Rita Makarau and Ben Hlatshwayo concurred with the ruling.

In his judgment at the High Court, Justice David Mangota rejected an attempt by the mine to hide behind a technicality in order to stop registration of a $1 494 450,64 award granted to the 22 workers by a labour arbitrator after they won their case against their employer over non-payment of allowances.

The workers cited the mine as Freda Rebecca Gold Mine Holdings.

The mine distanced itself from the whole labour case by citing that the name the workers had used was improper.

"This is a labour turned into a High Court matter, minus the apparent confusion thrown at it by crafty and extremely intelligent legal minds, the parties know each other in a very big way," said Justice Mangota.

He said the record showed that when Freda Rebecca Mine was served with the application for registration of the award, it wasted no time and filed its opposing papers using the name by which the workers cited it.

This, the judge said, it did without giving an reason as to why it was raising what it stated in its supplementary heads only at the eleventh hour.

Justice Mangota then stopped from raising the matter which it did in its supplementary heads given its previous conduct on the same matter.

He also noted that while what had been brought before him was a claim for registration of an arbitral award, the mine which appealed against the award by the Labour Court, was in fact an appeal against the arbitration process, not the matter at hand.

The workers claimed payment for various allowances that included medical, housing, utilities, shift, underground, cafeteria, production bonuses and food hampers.
- the herald

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