The Labour Court in Cape Town ruled that the City of Cape Town unfairly denied a senior employee a proper opportunity to participate in a promotion competition due to an unacceptable candidate search process. As a result, the court awarded him compensation exceeding R319,000.
Judge Susanna Josephine Harvey overturned and set aside an arbitration ruling that had dismissed Mahlatse Maebana's claim of labour rights violation. The court found that the municipality acted improperly during the hiring process for the Manager position.
Challenging the Failed Promotion
Maebana, who worked as a head of the operational programmes management unit in the City's Waste Management Directorate, unsuccessfully applied for this managerial position when it was first advertised in 2022. Despite meeting the minimum requirements, he was not included in the shortlist, and the appointment did not proceed. Subsequently, the municipality initiated a process he termed a candidate search, identifying three applicants, including colleague George Jonkers. After this process also failed to result in an appointment, the position was re-advertised in 2023.
Maebana reapplied, made the shortlist, and scored the highest in the interview among candidates. However, the interview panel concluded that none of the candidates possessed sufficient competence for the appointment. Instead of restarting the recruitment process, the City reverted to the candidates identified during the previous search and ultimately appointed Jonkers.
Illegal Candidate Search Process
The Labour Court determined that the commissioner who initially dismissed Maebana's complaint made a significant legal error by concluding that the City's hiring policy permitted candidate searches under such circumstances. Judge Harvey ruled that Municipal Staff Regulations only allow for alternative hiring methods, such as candidate searches, if the position was classified as critical or requiring scarce skills after the primary recruitment process failed. The manager position in the collection department did not fall into this category.
The court found that the City's internal hiring policy could not override subsequent Municipal Staff Regulations, meaning the municipality should have simply re-advertised the vacancy instead of reverting to candidates identified in the previous search.
Employee Denied Fair Opportunity
The court stated that Maebana did not need to prove he would have been appointed to win the case. Instead, the injustice lay in being denied another fair chance to compete for the position within a lawful hiring process. Judge Harvey found that with the correct application of regulations, the commissioner could have reached a different conclusion regarding the fairness of the City's actions.
The court also criticized the commissioner's unexplained refusal to issue a summons to the municipal manager, labeling it procedural unfairness. Nevertheless, it dismissed Maebana's allegations of conflicts of interest involving high-ranking city officials and found no evidence of manipulation of interview scores.
Payment for Three Months
By the time the case was heard in the Labour Court, Maebana had left his employment with the City and no longer sought appointment or reversal of Jonkers' appointment. Instead, he requested compensation equivalent to 12 months' remuneration. The court refused to award the maximum amount, finding that while Maebana's right to a fair promotion process was violated, there was no proof he would necessarily have secured the position. Judge Harvey instead awarded compensation equivalent to three months' remuneration, amounting to R319,604.75, describing it as a fair remedy for the loss of a legitimate opportunity to compete, rather than compensation for the promotion itself.
