By Yankuba Jallow
The lawsuit involving 145 former employees of Ocean Bay Hotel and Resort and the Social Security, is set for ruling.
The lost documents that were tendered by the former employees of the Company were finally found. Readers could recall that the documents were announced lost by the court. Magistrate Blessed after seeing the documents, advised both parties in the trial to sit and discuss in order to find an amicable solution.
The ruling has been hampered on three occasions most of which was at the instance of the court. The two -year case is set for ruling which the court has failed to deliver on three previous adjourned dates.
The court will be ruling on the objection raised by the defense Lawyer, saying an individual cannot give an evidence for the whole group which was countered by plaintiffs’ counsel, Lawyer E. Sanneh. Cousel for the defense objected that K. Ceesay (PW1) cannot tender witnesses on behalf of all the plaintiffs. Barrister E. Sanneh, in his contention, held that it is not against any principle of law, supporting his argument with a provision of Industrial Tribunal laws, which he said conform to it.
The documents they tendered have an employment term ‘permanent and pensionable employees,’ which is the cause of the civil suit before the court. The workers have served the hotel for more than a decade and their termination came when the hotel was leased to BPI Investment through a letter dated 3rd December, 2013.
The workers sued the Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation for unlawful termination of their contracts (employment). The case has now lasted for over 2 years and the claimants were able to bring in only one witness due to the delay the case suffered from, when they were the only ones present in court, whenever the case was called. The matter has been hampered on several occasions by so many long adjournments.
The case has been handled by different magistrates before and there is new magistrate handling it now as Senior Magistrate N. Blessed, registered her willingness to proceed with the case
