RELIANCE PERSONNEL v. NATIONAL LABOUR COMMISSION

M. WOOD (MRS), JA

The Respondent/Appellant (hereinafter referred to as the Appellant) is appealing against the ruling of the High Court, Labour Division, Accra delivered on 14th May 2021 in which the said High Court ordered the enforcement of a decision of the Applicant/Respondent (hereinafter referred to as the Respondent) dated 11th February 2020. The antecedents of the case are that the Appellant offered a fixed one year term contract of employment to complainant Daniel Osei as a Field Maintenance Engineer, from 1st June 2017 to 31st May 2018. However, the Appellant by a letter dated 12th December, 2017 terminated the Complainant’s contract effective 31st December 2017 in accordance with paragraph 11 of the complainant’s contract of employment.

The said contract provided that either party to the contract could terminate the contract by the giving of two weeks’ notice or payment of two weeks salary in lieu.

The complainant on 23rd May 2018 filed a complaint to the Respondent herein claiming among others compensation of Four Hundred Thousand Cedis (GHȼ400, 000. 00) for unfair termination, psychological and emotional trauma as well as an amount of Eight Thousand, Eight Hundred Ghana Cedis (GHȼ8, 800. 00) being payment of deferred performance bonus from May 2017 to December 2017. The Appellant filed a response to the complaint on 19th July 2018 stating among others that the employment was terminated in accordance with the terms of the contract and as such complainant’s claim of unfair termination is untenable and without any basis.

After hearing the parties on 11th February 2020, the Respondent gave its ruling by stating thus: “We have reviewed the whole case and we are saying that the Labour Law was brought in to strengthen the position of your case against the Common Law.

The complainant was given a one (sic) contract of employment and this was based on the contract you had with Huawei.

Without any disciplinary reason, you just gave two weeks notice to the complainant for termination.

Having heard both parties, the Commission decided that the Respondent should pay the Complainant from the period which his contract was terminated but take away the two weeks that have already been paid. ” The Respondent therefore stated that the termination of the complainant employment contract was without any disciplinary reason; that the contract was terminated based on two weeks’ notice to the complainant and that the complainant should be paid salary for the une