WHEN WILL A SUSPENSION BE FAIR

When considering whether the suspension of a senior employee was fair or not, Court stated the risk which the senior employee posed such as influencing or intimidating junior staff should be considered. If this was a real risk then a precautionary suspension was not unfair.

DISCLOSURE OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION

In the course of pursuing a claim for unfair dismissal at the CCMA, an employee presented certain documents which the employer claimed to be confidential. The Commissioner hearing the matter was asked to rule on whether or not these documents were admissible or whether they were protected by their confidential nature.

The Commissioner found that in litigating a claim for an unfair dismissal the employee was entitled to submit confidential documents.

LEGAL REPRESENTATION AT DISCIPLINARY HEARINGS

At disciplinary hearings in a number of rulings the Labour Court and the CCMA have ruled that the chairperson of a disciplinary enquiry has a discretion as to whether or not to allow legal representation. This is despite what may be recorded in a collective agreement i.e prohibiting legal representation or whether the external legal representation is sought.

RESTRAINT OF TRADE

A Court refused to grant an urgent interdict enforcing a restraint of trade where the employees, even though they had taken up employment with a competitor, were only restrained from taking up employment with clients and further indicated that the restraint was too broad an unreasonable as it prevented the erstwhile employees from being employed by any of the Applicant’s customers anywhere in the world for 12 months i.e the breadth of the restraint was too wide.