Former Urafiki Textile workers lose court appeal
What you need to know:
- They filed an application before the legal facility in September 2017, alleging a violation of their right to work as well as their right to non-discrimination.
Arusha. The former workers of Urafiki Textile Mills have lost a case for reparations before the African Court on Human and People’s Rights (AfCHPR).
They filed an application before the legal facility in September 2017, alleging a violation of their right to work as well as their right to non-discrimination.
However, the Court found out that the applicants had failed to discharge their burden of proving that they had been discriminated against.
The case was filed before AfCHPR by Almas Mohamed Muwinda and others through application No. 030/2017 after having exhausted the local remedies. They are all former employees of the Dar es Salaam-based textile mill, a government-owned company that was dissolved in 1997.
They alleged a violation of their right to work under Article 15 of the African Human and People’s Rights Charter and Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Besides the right to work, the former employees of the state-owned entity claimed their right to remunerations in the form of their terminal benefits.
They also claimed they were entitled to subsistence allowance for the time they spent waiting for their payments after being terminated from employment.
They demanded subsistence allowance at the rate of Sh9,000 per day while the applicants’ allowance was computed at the rate of Sh6,400 per day.
The African Court observed however, that the dispute in relation to the applicants’ entitlement had been litigated in their favour before the High Court of Tanzania.
Although this was reversed by the Court of Appeal, the judicial organ of the African Union found out there was no basis for interfering with the Court of Appeal verdict.
This, according to Mr Muwinda and others (the applicants), amounted to an unacceptable form of discrimination.
However, the Court said the applicants had failed to discharge their burden of proving that they had been discriminated against.
It thus dismissed the applicants’ claim for a violation of their right to non-discrimination and did not award any reparations.
