Johannesburg - The Johannesburg Labour Court has slammed the University of South Africa’s (Unisa’s) head of legal services and the entire Unisa leadership for bringing “absolutely hopeless cases” before it.
This comes after the embattled university failed to defend itself against Vice-Principal: Operations and Facilities, Dr Marcia Socikwa, who challenged her unfair dismissal through the labour court.
The case was heard on May 8, with judgment delivered on June 7 by acting Judge Smanga Sethene, who was scathing in his ruling against the university and its head of legal services, Professor Vuyo Ntsangane Peach.,
This after Socikwa challenged the termination of her five year term with Unisa, which was terminated after she was given the impression that her services would be retained by the institution.
However, the university did not retain her services and terminated her contract on February 1, 2021. Socikwa challenged this decision on the basis that it was unfair.
She approached the CCMA, and an award of six months’ salary, amounting to about R1.2 million, was made in her favour.
However, the university filed a belated review application with the labour court in October 2022 challenging the CCMA’s ruling, and no further action was taken. The application was "deemed archived".
Judge Sethene reprimanded Unisa for having failed to apply within the stipulated time period.
When she was not paid her fees, Socikwa went with the sheriff in May this year and was given the right to attach assets from the university.
The university, through Peach, approached the court, saying there was a review application pending and that Socikwa was acting unlawfully.
Peach said the review application had been launched on May 5.
However, Judge Sethene challenged Unisa’s lawyers about whether there was a pending review. Counsel took instructions and then asked for an order striking its own application from the roll with costs.
“The application by Unisa is struck off the roll for want of urgency. Unisa is ordered to pay Dr Socikwa’s legal costs on an attorney and client scale, and the Legal Practice Council is ordered to investigate the conduct of Prof Vuyo Ntsangane Peach as to whether he sought to mislead the court in respect of the date of the filing of the review application by Unisa," the judge's scathing ruling said.
Judge Sethene said it was clear Peach had deliberately sought to confuse the court.
"In clear terms, Professor Peach in Unisa’s founding affidavit elected to be a stranger to the truth, or perhaps he deliberately meandered into amnesia as a tactic to deceive the court," he said.
Judge Sethene said the case number of the review application provided by Peach, which he claimed was launched in May, had the same case number as the "archived case", in which he had also deposed an affidavit.
He directed that if fees had already been paid, the lawyers had to pay back the money.
Judge Sethene said the urgency claimed by the university was self-created as the university failed to do its job and file its application in time.
“The urgency was self-created for reasons that are inexplicable and devoid of rationality and candour. However, both applicants, powered by the prevalence of ineptitude, believed there was hope in their hopeless urgent applications.
“Unisa ought to have known there were no pending review applications before this court due to their inexplicable sloppiness in prosecuting their applications,” the judge said.
The Star