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Senior Engineer Loses Bid To Retain ERA Job

The High Court in Kampala has dismissed an application in which Engineer Eric Katabarwa Butime sought an order to quash the decision by the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) to suspend him as the Senior Engineer in Charge of Investment Verification.

The Civil Division Judge Musa Ssekaana on Thursday dismissed the application with costs on grounds that it was wrongly filed before the Court and it ought to have been filed before the labour officer or the Industrial court.

Katabarwa petitioned the Court in 2021 challenging the September 10th 2021 decision to remove him from public office for alleged misconduct and also seeking an order prohibiting ERA from further victimizing him and an order of general, aggravated and, punitive damages.

He told the court that he assumed work ERA on September 5th 2016 and his contract of employment was renewed for a further five-year term with effect from September 5th 2021.

Katabarwa added that he was on September 10th 2021 removed from his job abruptly, unjustly, unfairly, irregularly, improperly, and high-handedly and without due process like a disciplinary hearing but rather from a purported expiry of the contract.

Katabarwa said he asked to be reinstated but ERA unjustifiably denied it. He thus asked the Court to allow his application in the interest of ensuring that the respondent upholds, respects and promotes the rule of law and human rights in the exercise of its statutory powers.

But ERA asked the Court to dismiss the case arguing that Katabarwa’s contract was a fixed term and therefore his application is overtaken by events as his contract expired on September 3rd 2021 and was never renewed or extended.

“That the applicant sabotaged the process of his contract renewal and or extension when he willfully failed or neglected to respond or indicate his acceptance to the offer by the respondent to renew his contract under the prevailing terms and conditions,” said ERA.

According to court records, Katabarwa further sabotaged the process of his contract renewal and extension when he allegedly committed several actions that would have amounted to a fundamental breach of his employment contract entitling ERA to summarily terminate him if he had a valid employment contract.

In his judgement, Ssekaana has dismissed the case saying Katabarwa erroneously filed an application under judicial review to enforce a private law benefit adding that where the appointment or revocation is not governed by Statute or the Constitution then it is considered as a matter of private law, not public law.

“Public law is the system which enforces the proper performance by public bodies of the duties which they owe the public. On the other hand, private law is concerned with the enforcement of personal rights of persons, human or juridical, such as those emanating under property, contract, and duty of care under tort and mainly regulates relations between private persons,” said Ssekaana.

Justice Ssekaana said that the subject matter under challenge involves the enforcement of private law rights where the underlying issue is a labour complaint and that nature of the dispute has an alternative remedy under the Employment Act 2006.

“Being a labour complaint, the applicant ought to have filed a matter before the labour officer or the Industrial court. A court’s inherent jurisdiction should not be invoked where there is a specific statutory provision that would meet the necessities of the case”, said Ssekaana.

According to Ssekaana the facts that were brought before him disclosed that the dispute in issue relates to the applicant’s rights under the Employment Act where a  Labour Officer or the Industrial Court are best suited or specialized in handling and determining such.

“This application is incompetently before this court for failing to exhaust the existing available remedies under the Employment Act and is therefore dismissed with costs,” he added.

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