Court staff to seek judicial remedy

Judiciary support staff, who resumed work yesterday after a four-week strike to push government to start paying them housing allowance, have announced plans to go to court after reviewing lawyer Modecai Msisha’s conciliation report recommendations.

In an interview yesterday, spokesperson for the Judiciary Workers Union, Andy Haliwa, said despite the support staff returning to work, the issue was far from over as their grievances are yet to be addressed.

He said the essence of the conciliation process was to find out whether their claim was valid and, according to Msisha, they have a legitimate expectation.

Said Haliwa: “Actually, to us, this is just the beginning considering the fact that we are waiting to get a hard copy on recommendations from the conciliator, Modecai Msisha. From there, we go back to court because it’s the courts that ordered us to go for this process.

“We will still pursue this issue. We need housing allowances. We don’t know what government will call it. They can call it risk allowance or whatever, but we know we have a legitimate explanation.”

The support staff called off their strike on Tuesday evening, a day after defying appeals from Chief Justice Andrew Nyirenda and the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) for them to return to work.

In an interview on Tuesday, president of the Judiciary Workers Union, Charles Lizigeni, said they resolved to return to work to show respect to Nyirenda’s plea.

The strike stalled progress of hundreds of cases. n