State Residences staff’s application thrown out

The Industrial Relations Court (IRC) has dismissed an application by 99 State Residences employees who wanted the court to restore their interim relief restraining their employer from implementing their transfers made in 2022. In his ruling yesterday in Blantyre, IRC acting chairperson Tamanda Nyimba, among others, said State Residences are “highly sensitive” workplaces to allow the applicants who were evicted from institutional houses to go back without vetting. He said it “would be gravely unthinking” of the court to allow restoration of the order of urgent interim relief to have all evicted applicants return to occupy their institutional houses at Sanjika Palace in Blantyre.

“I think that would be quite reckless considering that the evicted applicants may have been tainted, as it were, during their lengthy absence from State House premises and would therefore potentially compromise the security apparatus at State Residences or Sanjika Palace,” said Nyimba. He also wondered why it took five months for the applicants to move the court to restore the order of urgent interim relief which was dissolved by the court in March 2023. Nevertheless, the court found that the motion to restore the order applied to all applicants yet some are still at their workplace or were called back to their institutional houses at Sanjika Palace.

The court has since directed the parties to hold a pre-hearing conference in accordance with Rules 13(1), (2) and (6) of the Industrial Relations Court Rules within 28 days. On his part, the applicants’ lawyer Luciano Mickeus said he would need time to discuss with his clients before taking a next step. Some of the employees we talked to said they were not welcomed at their new working places and have been staying idle, but have been earning their salaries since 2022.

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Some earn more than K400 000 monthly. In May 2022, the Office of President and Cabinet issued a memo informing the employees that they had been redeployed from Sanjika Palace to various government and public departments, forcing them to challenge the decision in court. On October 11 2022, the applicants obtained an order of urgent interim relief restraining State Residences from transferring and forcefully evicting them from their institutional houses. But in March 2023, the Attorney General obtained an order, discharging the interim relief, a decision the applicants wanted the court to reverse.

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