By ‘Majirata Latela
Officers of Subordinate Courts are suing the judicial service, demanding salary hikes from Grade C to F in line with the Judiciary Structure of 2017.
The matter will be heard on March 29 2022.
The Subordinate Courts are at the bottom of Lesotho’s court structures and are made up of the Local and Central Courts.
The court officers have petitioned the High Court where they want an order for them to be moved to Grade F and also be paid salary adjustment arrears dating back to March 2017 when the structure was approved.
The clerks and presidents of the courts want the High Court to order the ministry of finance and the High Court Registrar Advocate ‘Mathato Sekoai to ‘process and pay’ their salary arrears from Grade A to D, dating back to March 2017 when the promotion structure was approved.
In the application, the 79 court officers argue that they had legitimate expectation to be remunerated at Grade F from March 2017 and the failure to do so is prejudicial to them.
Advocate Sekoai, the principal secretary of the ministry of public service, ministry of public service, ministry of finance and Attorney General Rapelang Motsieloa are cited as the respondents.
“Around March 2017 a much anticipated new structure for the judiciary was approved and in terms of which the applicants were elevated from Grade C to F,” one of the clerks, ‘Manaleli Makosholo states in her founding affidavit filed on behalf of the applicants.
“Not withstanding the approval and implementation of the judiciary structure, the applicants continue to be remunerated at Grade C as opposed to legitimate expectation that they would be remunerated accordingly but the expectation remains hanging to date.
“The applicants are privy to the fact that their colleagues in the High Court filed an application under case number CIV/APN/24/2017 in which the High Court directed the first and second respondents herein (Sekoai and PS Public Service) to ensure that all those affected by the approved judiciary structure would enjoy equal treatment, protection, rights and status as contemplated in the judiciary structure. They were directed to implement the said approved structure. It is by now axiomatic that the said approved structure has, in so far as the applicants are concerned, not been implemented.
“The applicants have since discovered that the laxity in the implementation has been impeded by the fact that around March 2017, the first and second respondents convened and arrived at a decision to reverse applicants grading from F back to C. The unilateral reversal decision was never communicated to the applicants and no rational basis has been laid for the unfortunate decision,” the court papers said.
Makosholo further argues that the High Court registrar, being the chief accounting officer of the judiciary, and PS Public Service did not have the power to reverse the grading of the 79 court clerks without consulting them.
“I assert strongly that the impugned reversal decision is prejudicial to the applicants’ rights and therefore irrational. The first and second respondents therefore acted beyond the powers vested in them in arriving at the impugned decision.
“I aver that the decision to reverse the applicants grading from F to C is procedurally unfair and the applicants were not invited to make representations. The decision was therefore taken without affording them a hearing. I aver that whatever influenced the reversal decision is unknown to me and my co-applicants and we can only at this stage conclude that irrelevant considerations were taken into account resulting in a wrong decision,” Ms Makosholo states in her court papers.
They want the High Court to order that “The decision to reverse the grading of the applicants from Grade F to C be reviewed, corrected and set aside as irregular. Direct the fourth respondent (Ministry of Finance) to process and pay all such arrear salaries that are due to the applicants in the event of their success in having the impugned decision set aside”.
According to one local court officer who preferred to remain anonymous in case he gets victimized said there was evaluation that was done on the judiciary’s payment structure. He said the evaluation gave birth to February 21 2017 savingram which showed that operational structures have been approved conditionally.
“The minister of public service developed a strategy plan for the judiciary for 2016/2017 to 2019/ 2020 and also functional and operational structures were proposed. Following the assessment of your proposal, the operational structures were approved conditionally,” reads the savingram which was signed by the then principal secretary of the ministry of public service Lebohang Moreke.
“We had expected that after approval the new structure will be put in place and then all officers that the structure had approved will be paid using the old structure. However, that was not the case. We are still waiting to see the difference in our salaries.
“While we are still waiting for the structure to be put in place, some of the officers in the judiciary structure also realized that they have been waiting too long for the structure to be effected. Then they filed a case in court and even before the judgement was out they were then paid according to the structure. When that happened, we then understood that the structure is put in place but only in other positions of the judiciary. We then decided it was best to go to court,” the clerk said.
Positions such as the deputy chief justice, judge president, chief registrar, registrar court of appeal, judicial administrator, regional magistrate, senior judges’ clerk, senior registrars’ clerk, public relations officer were not approved in the new structure.
Sekoai has declined to comment saying the matter was now before the courts of law.
