ZIMBABWE ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION & DISTRIBUTION CO v MADUNGWE & ORS 2016 (2) ZLR 479 (S)

Flynote

Employment: " contract " termination " contract of fixed duration " when employee can be said to have legitimate expectation of re-engagement " engaging of another person in place of such employee " does not include engagement of company to carry out task performed by employee

Headnote

The respondents were employed on fixed term contracts by the appellant as security guards. The contract periods ranged between one and six months and were occasionally renewed. The appellant decided to do away with the system based on fixed term contracts and did not renew the respondents' contracts when they expired. It instead engaged a private security company to provide security services. The respondents maintained, relying on s 12B(3)(b) of the Labour Act, that as their contracts had been renewed several times before, they had entertained a legitimate expectation that they would be employed on a permanent basis when their fixed term contracts expired. The respondents further argued that while entertaining the legitimate expectation they were unfairly dismissed at the expiry of their contracts, when the appellant engaged another person.

Held, that the onus of proving a legitimate expectation rested with the respondents and in addition the respondents needed to prove that they were supplanted by another person. The respondents had not discharged the onus of establishing a legitimate expectation of being re-engaged when the contracts of fixed duration expired.

Held, further, that the respondents had also not established that another person had been engaged instead of themselves, as "another person" meant a natural person and could not include a company.