It is a blow for graduate police constables after the Court of Appeal over ruled the decision by the labour court to promote and remunerate them as inspectors.
Judges Martha Koome, Sankale Ole Kantai and W Karanja rulef that the funds needed to satisfy the impugned judgment are not at the disposal of the applicants or in their coffers and that such funds have to be budgeted for and that takes a process in which the applicants are not the only players.
“We hereby suspended the implementation directing Police Service Commission and National Police service to pay all graduate constables salaries equivalent to pay of an Inspector of Police Job Group J and as per the prevailing commission’s policy as clarified in the press release by the Chairperson on 19th March 2018,” the judges ruled.
The NPC had argued that if the appeal did not succeed, the reversal process could be quite onerous and impracticable particularly to institutions or persons that are not party to these proceedings.
The NPS and commission appealed the decision by Employment and Labour Relations court judge Bryan Onyaya directing them to pay all graduate constables salaries equivalent to pay of an Inspector of Police Job Group J and as per the prevailing 1st respondent’s policy as clarified in the press release by the Chairperson on 19th March 2018.
The court declared that the commission’s conduct and action amounts to denial, violation, infringement and or threat to the fundamental rights and freedoms of Graduate Constable Officers’ rights under Articles 41(1) and (2) (a) and (b), and 47 of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010.
Further, it declared that Graduate Police Officers who are University graduates on a salary scale below Job Group J and yet similarly qualified as Graduate Police Officers in Job Group J are entitled to be emplaced to pay scale of graduate constables equivalent to pay of an Inspector of Police Job Group J.
In the suit, the officers and the activist who filed case claimed that they have degree certificates yet their pay is the same as that of non-graduates yet when they graduate they move to Job Group J after presenting a degree certificate
In the petition, NPSC confirmed that upon submission of respective degree certificates, graduate police constables would be accordingly remunerated in keeping with the 1st January 1969 practice, paying them under Job Group J.
“Not withstanding this commitment, our employer continues to ignore, neglect or refuse to pay us and other qualified graduate constables,” said the petitioners.
