- Supreme Court Registrar Bernard Kasavuli on Monday directed that the matter proceeds for empanelment before Koome.
- The petitions filed in different courts in Kenya were consolidated and heard by the ELRC Court in Nairobi.
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A case seeking to stop the state from effecting changes in the NSSF contributions has been forwarded to Chief Justice Martha Koome to enrol a panel bench to hear the matter.
Supreme Court Registrar Bernard Kasavuli on Monday directed that the matter proceeds for empanelment before Koome to hear the case filed by the County Petitioners Association.
The matter was listed for today to confirm whether the parties in the case had complied with earlier orders of the court regarding the filing and service of documents.
But an argument ensued between the lawyers representing the association and the respondents in the suit with the latter claiming not to have been served with the papers by March 3, as claimed by the Association's lawyer.
Kasavuli after listening to the parties said he has no jurisdiction to act on documents filed out of time stressing there was a limitation as to when the documents should have been filed.
The County Pensioners Association moved to the Supreme Court following a decision by the Court of Appeal that set the motion for the National Social Security Fund to increase workers’ monthly deductions from March 9, 2023.
The NSSF Act seeks to increase monthly contributions by 98 per cent (From Sh200 to Sh2160). The act provides for further increases in subsequent years.
The association represents 6,000 retirees who were contributors to the local authorities' pensions trust.
The association says implementation of the Act poses a serious threat of monopoly and it will impoverish the entire pensions industry.
They want the Supreme Court to bar the NSSF Board of Trustees, the Retirement Benefits Authority and the Federation of Kenya Employees (FKE) from increasing workers’ monthly deductions.
The enactment of the Act triggered a wave of constitutional petitions before the High Court and the Employment and Labour Relations Court.
As a result, 5 petitions were filed challenging the constitutionality of the act.
The petitions filed in different courts in Kenya were consolidated and heard by the ELRC Court in Nairobi.
The said court in September last year termed the Act as unconstitutional to the extent that the National Assembly excluded the Senate from the enactment.
The ELRC judges in their decision also said a section of the act permitted CS Labour to usurp the constitutional mandate of Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).
The judges said a provision in the Act violated the right to free choice by forcing persons who were in superior pension schemes to join the NSSF.
Aggrieved with the decision, the NSSF Board of Trustees and the Attorney General appealed.
And on February 3, the appellate court set aside the ELRC decision. The Court of Appeal held that ELRC lacked jurisdiction to determine the consolidated petitions.
The appellate court also found that the Employment and Labour Relations Court had no powers to determine the case and that the High Court should have handled the dispute.
The judges said that the Labour Relations Court can only hear matters where constitutional issues are raised in a context of an employer-employee dispute.
The judges said that the Labour Relations Court can only hear matters where constitutional issues are raised in a context of an employer-employee dispute.