• Judge rules that Wilson Macharia's right to be treated with dignity as provided for under Article 28, 41 and 54(1) and Fair Administrative Action under Article 47 were violated
• Macharia had filed a petition seeking a declaration that Safaricom's decision to deny him a job on the basis of his disability amounted to an act of discrimination against him and offended the Employment Act.
Safaricom has been ordered to pay Sh6 million to a visually impaired man for violating his rights by denying him a job due to his disability.
Justice James Makau ruled that Wilson Macharia's right to be treated with dignity were violated by the telecommunications company.
Macharia had filed a petition seeking a declaration that Safaricom's decision to deny him a job on the basis of his disability amounted to an act of discrimination against him and offended the Employment Act.
The judge agreed that Macharia demonstrated his right to be treated with dignity was violated and remains violated by the telco.
“The petitioner is awarded compensation under Article 23(3)(d) of the Constitution for violation of rights to be treated with dignity under Article 28 and 54(1) and for violation of rights to fair Administrative Action under Article 47 the sum of Sh6,000,000,” Justice Makau ruled.
In the petition, Macharia had further urged the court to declare Safaricom in contravention to sections 12(1), (2) and 15(1), (2) of the Persons with Disabilities Act as well as Article 1 and 27(1)(a) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities.
In that regard, he asked for compensation, exemplary and aggravated damages.
The petitioner told the court that in or about August 2016, Safaricom advertised for a customer experience executive position through its career portal and a newspaper advert in which it indicated it was committed to creating a “diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer".
"All qualified Kenyan applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, gender, tribal origin, disability or age,” the advert said in part.
Safaricom said it was committed to employing all qualified candidates right from the beginning, including persons with disabilities.
The shortlisted candidates, who included Macharia, were invited for a two-stage interview consisting oral and technical evaluations on July 7, 2017.
On the date of interview, all interviewees were taken through orientation before the actual interview.
But Safaricom’s employee and labour relations senior manager was informed that one candidate, Macharia, was unable to undertake the SHL computerised aptitude test as he was visually impaired.
The Labour Relations manager met Macharia and confirmed the same. He then told him that they were not able to conduct the SHL interview but asked him to proceed to the oral interview phase as the company considered a workaround for a later date.
The alternative would have been to inform him he could not proceed with the interview, which they did not.
The company said the manager told Macharia it would consider a workaround because it had started a project to employ 10 visually impaired customer experience executives.
The company had engaged software providers who were working with the internal technical team to review integrations with the existing systems to support the project, the court heard.
“This demonstrates the company’s willingness to promote opportunities for PWDs and that since the virtually impaired customer experience executives would later conduct a similar interview process as the one undertaken with respect to the recruitment in question, ” company said.