June 29, 2022
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
At the Supreme Court of Ghana, Justice Gertrude Torkornoo JSC authored the judgment in a dispute between a senior customer relations assistant and her public utility employer arising from a televised investigative film by Anas Aremeyaw Anas. The employee was shown receiving what looked like money during working hours, leading to interdiction, an internal enquiry, and dismissal under a collective agreement clause prohibiting acts bringing the company into disrepute. The High Court found wrongful dismissal, reinstated the employee, and awarded fifteen months’ salary as damages; the Court of Appeal affirmed. On further appeal, the Supreme Court held that while disciplinary processes were followed, the employer failed to adduce sufficient, admissible evidence—beyond an unauthenticated video and hearsay voice-over—to prove misconduct or that the act brought the company into disrepute. The Court emphasized statutory and evidentiary burdens, fair hearing, and the inadmissibility of hearsay. It upheld reinstatement but, applying contemporary damages principles and given reinstatement, set aside the award of fifteen months’ salary. The appeal was allowed in part.
TORKORNOO JSC:-
The points of contention in this suit that has reached up to the second appellate court are
a.whether or not the dismissal of the Plaintiff from the employment of the defendant for being filmed receiving money from a third person was wrongful or not.
b.if the dismissal was wrongful, whether or not an order for damages for the said wrongful dismissal, as well as an order for the reinstatement of her employment granted by the high court, and affirmed by the court of appeal, are supported by law.
Background
Until April 2012, the Plaintiff/Respondent/Respondent (Plaintiff) was employed by the Defendant/Appellant/Appellant (Defendant) as a Senior Customer Relations Assistant at the defendant’s Afienya office. The grounds for the dismissal of Plaintiff from the employment of Defendant rested on the provision found in Appendix ‘C’. A. ix of defendant’s Collective Agreement with the Public Utility Workers’ Union in the words ‘Any offence or act deemed to bring the company’s name into disrepute’. This condition is repeated in Appendix ‘A’. A. ix of the defendant’s Manual of Staff Regulations and Conditions of Service for Senior Staff
A well- known investigative journalist called Anas Aremeyaw Anas aired a film on national television as part of an alleged exposition of corruption in the defendant company. Part of the film included the image of the Plaintiff receiving a reddish piece of paper during working hours. The video did not reveal the full body of the one who gave her the item captured on film.
In reaction to this video, the Plaintiff was summoned to the conference room of the Managing Director of the Defendant company on 25th January 2012, and made to watch a copy of the video. Thereafter, the Plaintiff was given a written query. The query first pointed to the fact that the exposition of malpractices within the defendant company by staff, including the plaintiff, had brought the defendant’s name into disrepute. Second, the query raised the fact that plaintiff had been identified in the video clip collecting money even though she is not a cashier, and third, the query raised the question why disciplinary action should not be taken against her for the two earlier reasons stated.
In her response, Plaintiff denied that the scene showed on video depicted the ‘collecting of money’. She said it showed the ‘receiving of a reddish substance’ which could have been an ECG folded bill or a one cedi Ghana note.
She asserted that owing to her hect