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Employment and Labour Relations Court uphold the decision by TSC to deregister KNUT Secretary-General as a Teacher




The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary-General Wilson Sossion has been de-registered as a teacher.

The Employment and Labour Relations Court upheld a decision by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), to deregister the ODM nominated member of parliament as a teacher due to gross misconduct.

The ruling, though, gave him an opportunity of defending his seat in the June elections, thanks to the Labour Relations Act.




However, the Knut constitution blocks non-teachers from vying for seats. The Act, whose stipulations override union laws, permits a secretary-general of a trade union to be any person — including those not involved or employed in the sector involved.




“The judgment is a non-issue to me because the Labour Act allows me to vie for the secretary-general post. The only thing I can lose is my personal benefits as a teacher,” Mr. Sossion said after the ruling.

TSC de-registered Sossion as a teacher in a gazette notice dated November 1, 2019, quoting section 30 of the TSC Act. The teachers’ employer accused him of breaching the third schedule of the TSC Act and the TSC code by causing insensibility of the competency-based curriculum (CBC) training in 11 counties.




Aggrieved by TSC’s ruling

TSC also accused Sossion of breaching the Public Officer’s Ethics Act and the Code of Regulation for Teachers by accepting his nomination to the National Assembly.

Aggrieved by the commission’s ruling, Mr. Sossion went to court and accused TSC of making an unjust and unreasonable decision meant to kill the education sector. He wanted the court to declare the gazette notice null and void and to issue orders stopping the commission from implementing their decision.




Represented by his lawyer Paul Muite, Mr. Sossion maintained that his main reason for his deregistration was to defeat the then-pending legal proceedings before the Court of Appeal.

But in its defense, TSC lawyer Fred Ngatia said Mr. Sossion was served with a notice of deregistration as a teacher on July 29, 2019, but failed to respond within 90 days.




TSC boss Dr. Nancy Macharia, in her affidavit, informed the court that Sossion’s removal was anchored in law and that in exercising the powers, she was not by bad faith or personal interest.

Reading the judgment in Nairobi on Tuesday, Justice Stephen Radido dismissed Mr. Sossion’s case, saying it lacked merit. He noted that Mr. Sossion did not suggest either in his pleadings and submissions that the section was invalid or against the law.




The Employment and Labor Relations Court declined his attempt to protect his position as a teacher within the corridors of justice after the same attempt in 2019 flopped.

It, however, remains to be seen whether the latest judgment is the end of Sossion’s bittersweet career after years of a frosty relationship between the Knut and Teachers Service Commission (TSC).




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