Lawyers Accused of Instigating Unfair Labour Practices in the Dispute Between the RCZ and its Senior Executive

It has come to our attention that firstly you have advised the Reformed Church in Zimbabwe (R.C.Z) leadership against either reinstating our client or paying him his salary arrears on the false and erroneous basis that he is still under suspension.It has also come to our client’s attention that you have advised certain members of the church hierarchy not to pursue dialogue with our client aimed at achieving an amicable settlement to this dispute. You have cited what you call your high prospects of success on appeal.CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND ILLEGAL Involvement. We are further told that on Friday, 22nd of November, 2024 you travelled to Masvingo for the sole purpose of addressing church members attending a Synodical Committee meeting in an endeavour to convince them that you had a solid case on appeal and in the process you made a number of false and disparaging statements of and concerning our client.We are further advised that you indicated that you had an 80% chance of success on appeal. Whilst our brief is not to probe into the reasons and motive behind the clearly unsupportable and unsustainable statements on your perceived prospects of success we are perplexed by the nature and manner of your involvement in church matters and in agitating for an appeal even in circumstances where it is clear that you are one of the reasons why the church lost the review application(s) before the Labour Court.It is clear according to our client that you are now beyond conflicted in the matter and that you are now pursuing an agenda that has nothing of benefit to thechurch.The starting point is that both you and Mr. M were illegally appointed to be part of the disciplinary process. The Synodical Committee which is the highest organ of the church in between Synod sessions did not appoint you into its disciplinary committee(s) and neither did it approve of your involvement in the matter at any time.None of the church organs which are involved in the appointment process such as the Board of Trustees and the Moderature ever met to recommend your involvement in the process.Further to that the provisions of S.l. 15/2006 do not allow you as outsiders to purport to sit as our client’s employer and purport to run its disciplinary affairs. In addition the definition segment of SECTION 2 OF PART 1 of the LABOUR ACT, excludes the two (2) of you from purporting to act as an employer in the name of the R.C.Z. That you decided to proceed with the matter in spite of the clear provisions of the law, which we believe you are aware of, can only be regarded as an unfortunate legal misadventure, which made sense only to you, in financial terms. That you have persistently advised certain members of the church to shun dialogue and pursue a legal route in the courts is not only regrettable, but same is against what we believe to be your professional duty as a legal practitioner.One cannot sacrifice dialogue and conciliation in pursuit of financial interests. Our client is concerned as not only an executive member of the highest organs of the church but as an employee and certified member of the church who contributes to its financial well being on a regular basis.We are also equally concerned as members of the church as to how you found yourself involved in the internal affairs of the church in contravention of SECTION 8 of the church policy document relating to tenders.Your “representation” of the church did not go to tender and neither was a waiver of or exemption from, the tender process granted.We do not therefore know how, by whom and by what process did you handle the case as the church prosecutor and thereafter purportedly as the church lawyer. We do not know how you are now even attending the church’s private meetings and addressing it. We can only speculate that you were approached by one or two members of the church’s Human Resources and Legal affairs committee who are close to you. Even then the process never went to tender, and neither were you exempted from the tender process.We understand you have already been paid substantially for your services and that you stand to be paid substantially for the appeal which appeal you possibly hope will justify or sanitise your involvement in the handling of our client’s disciplinary process, from the onset.ln other words the church is supposed to pay you substantial amounts so that, you can go to the highest court in the land, to justify your illegal appointment into the disciplinary process and as the lawyer handling all the court cases involving three (3) different sets of proceedings.ls this not a clear sign of a conflicted attorney? When you advise the church against pursuing talks it is only you who stands to benefit because you know that the appeal against our client has little prospects of success, unless if you are basing your views on anything else other than law, justice and fair play. Even in the unlikely event of the appeal succeeding at what cost (financially) and reputation wise is it to the church for which we are subscribing members?The benefits that our client is entitled to at law as an employee of over twenty-six (26) years service is a tiny fraction of what we as lawyers will get from a protracted legal battle. It will be worse for the church if all the intended appeals fail, as the church will also be saddled with further legal bills from the successful parties.ln addition in the case of our client he will also need to be paid for the time that he is seated at home, following your advice to the General-secretary. we are not yet excluding claims for damages e’t.c.It is therefore not of benefit to anyone but yourselves and your colleagues to push for an appeal in the process. we also note that even before appearing before the Synodical Committee on 22nd November, 2024 you had already prematurely begun the process of working on the appeal as evidenced by your letter to the Labour Court Registrar dated 18th November, 2024’This case should never be about nursing egos but about finding peaceful and amicable solutions to issues. We have made more than six (6) overtures for dialogue and for an amicable mutual termination both in written and in verbal form. These overtures are not born out of any perceived weakness, (because we believe our case is legally insurmountable). The overtures are borne out of a genuine quest for an amicable resolution of the matter in line with the ethos and values of the church as a Christian organisation as well as the dictates of the scriptures’ we therefore request (humbly) that you do the honourable thing by firstly avoiding denigrating our client in any forum of the church and secondly by recusing yourself from further involvement in the church’s business in view of what we are convinced is a conflicted position as well as the (potentially) financially damaging direction that you are trying to push the church into your advice is also causing a lot of conflict, division and unease within the church. We were also shocked to learn that you were claiming to be almost through with the appeal papers, when firstly you had not yet been furnished with the reasons for judgment and secondly you had not been mandated to pursue the appeal process. we are further advised that you even made some uncomfortable and potentially disparaging remarks against the Labour court’ which is a superior court of the land and against our church rules and regulations yet you are involved or purportedly involved in its affairs through invitation. Oy people who are office bearers by virtue of the same rules and regulations, which establish the church as a universitas or body corporate’ our client will be left with no option except to pursue arr remedies available within the law and legal profession, if you continue to pursue a self-serving agenda which we believe has no merits, and has no tangible benefits to the church and can grind its operations to a halt due to a financial crunch.Should you hold a different view from the above, then we would request that the case be referred for a second and third legal opinion by an independent team of lawyers. our client has been forced to instruct us to write to you because you decided to address an organ of our church on an open basis, and went beyond giving professional advice. Curiously we note that in your address to the church gathering you avoided the issue of the cost implications of firstly taking three (3)matters on appeal and secondly the possible costs to the church if the appeals do not succeed, as is the most likely scenario, in our respectful view at least with regards to Mr. M’s case. Even if the “church” wins it would still be a “losing winner” in manY waYS’we therefore look forward to hearing from you as a matter of urgency on the issues raised herein, so that we may properly map our client’s way forward’ Yours faithfully

CHITSA & MASVAYA LAW CHAMBERS