Over 100 former employees of National Bank of Kenya have suffered a setback after the Court of Appeal declined their request to escalate an early retirement dispute to the Supreme Court.
Hamida Bana and 102 others voluntarily entered into an early retirement scheme offered by the bank but later filed a case in court claiming the contract was discriminatory.
The Employment and Labor Relations Court (ELRC) heard the matter and declared that they were discriminated against and unfairly treated by the Bank in the voluntary early retirement scheme.
The court awarded each of them compensation and severance pay. Aggrieved, the Bank appealed and won.
The appellate Judges set aside the judgment of the ELRC and substituted it with an order dismissing the ex-employees' suit.
Aggrieved, the employees filed an application before the same appellate court seeking to be allowed to lodge an appeal at the Supreme Court.
They claimed the appeal judges made a mistake in selectively reading the Voluntary Early Release (VER) circular issued to them thus disregarding the parameters of the application of the HR Manual that denied them their lawful accrued constitutional rights as it relates to fair remuneration without discrimination.
Their argument in seeking to escalate the matter to the apex court is that the Court of Appeal overlooked and did not consider the constitutional requirement touching on the right to fair labor practices and protection from discrimination and therefore arrived at the wrong conclusion and finding that is suitable for consideration by the Supreme court.
Justices Hannah Okwengu, Hellen Omondi, and John Mativo in dismissing their application said the threshold has not been met for the matter to proceed to the Supreme Court.
They said their intended appeal is “not one that raises issues of general public importance”.
