The High Court in Machakos has slammed the brakes on the recommendation of Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) Machakos Branch that its Vice Chairperson Yvonne Mutindi be expelled from the union.
The Court halted the decision pending hearing and determination of a case she filed challenging the branch’s disciplinary action and process.
In the orders given by Justice Francis Rayola Olel dated January 24, 2024, the Court has further ordered the branch to reinstate Mutindi on the branch’s official WhatsApp group to enable her discharge her duties, setting March 5, 2024 as the date the matter will be mentioned for further orders.
In the case, Mutindi has sued her Machakos Branch, the union, KUPPET Secretary General Akello Misori, and KUPPET Machakos Branch Executive Secretary over a flawed disciplinary process, where it was alleged that she assaulted Misori and disrupted the proceedings of last year’s Annual Delegates Conference (ADC).
The branch resolved that she be expelled from the union, thus the Court’s classifying the matter as urgent.
“This application be and is hereby certified as urgent. The applicant herein be and is hereby granted leave to apply for an order of centiorari to remove to this Honorable Court, for quashing, the decision of the first respondent (KUPPET Machakos branch) contained in its letter dated January 17, 2024 purporting to recommend the expulsion of Yvonne Mutindi Musyoka from her position as Vice-Chairperson KUPPET Machakos Branch and her membership to KUPPET,” the ruling stated.
“The applicant herein be and is hereby granted leave to apply for and order of mandamus to compel the administrators of the WhatsApp groups KUPPET MKS OFFICIALS 2021 and MKS B/GOVERNING COUNCIL to reinstate YVONNE MUTINDI MUSYOKA as a member of the said groups which are to her coordination of her duties as the Branch Vice Chairperson. That the grant of leave to operate as a stay of the said decisions contained in the said letters dated January 17, 2024,” ordered Justice Rayola further.
On December 20, 2023, KUPPET Machakos Executive Secretary Musembi Katuku wrote a show cause letter to Mutindi, alleging that she violently disrupted the proceedings of the union’s ADC held at Moi International Sports Centre-Indoor Arena in Nairobi on December 16, 2023.
Mutindi in her response, however, denied the allegations, arguing that it was indeed the chairman Omboko Milemba who fuelled the chaos by referring delegates to a non-existent agenda in the folder and continually referring to the ‘agenda’ despite the delegates’ restlessness.
“He went ahead to call upon someone to propose the unknown ‘agenda’ without bothering to elaborate to members what he wanted proposed and the contents of the said agenda. He conducted the plenary initially in a mafia style, causing tension. He needs to be disciplined for causing the tension,” Mutindi said.
“The SG assaulted me and the assault is currently under police investigation…I believe that you are being used by the duo to cover up for their misdeeds and pre-empt the police investigations and subsequent criminal court proceedings,” said Mutindi in her response to the show cause letter dated December 26, 2023.
In the Court papers, Mutindi states that the decisions the branch arrived at in her disciplinary case were procedurally unfair, unlawful and unconstitutional in so far as they were made without according her a hearing as required by the rules of natural justice and the Constitution; and that the actions and decisions were arbitrary as there were no reasons or grounds to warrant her removal.
A clause in the union’s 2022 minutes, which reads: “The union shall entrench proportionate representation in the Constitution to cure discrimination”, which was to be confirmed in last year’s ADC, has seen the union split down the middle, with some branch bosses opposing its introduction in the current ongoing changes to the constitution. This split was the root cause of the melee at Kasarani.
Apparently, the recent move by the country’s teacher employer Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to post some of the union branch executive secretaries back to class under unclear circumstances has been interpreted by some quotas as getting dragged into the union leadership tussle.
By Roy Hezron
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