Reserves Ruling After Hearing LPRC Redundant Employees Case Twice.
Capitol Hill, Monrovia – The 2006 downsized employees of the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC) have written to the Supreme Court of Liberia to request a ruling in the case involving the downsized employees and the management of the LPRC. This appears to be a cry for justice, as the Supreme Court held two recessive hearings on the matter.
The Supreme Court’s persistent failure to issue a decision in a case that has been before it for seven years and has been lingering in the judiciary’s corridor for about nineteen years, according to the LPRC Redundant Employees, is an attempt to deny them justice because justice delayed is justice denied.
“Moving forward, we wish to outrightly call upon the Honourable Supreme Court
of Liberia to stand the high moral ground to release the ruling in our case as justice delay is justice denied.”
The Liberia Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC) management implemented what it called a “right-sizing plan” to downsize its 750- staff to about 250 workers during the administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. More than 400 Petroleum Refining Company employees lost their jobs as a result of this conduct.
According to the employees who were let off in 2006, “shortly after the redundancy exercise carried out by the Company, it became glaring that to the contrary, more people were recruited and employed, something similar to a politically motivated wrongful dismissal.”
The laid off employees persisted. “We the affected LPRC redundant employees of 2006 subsequently filed a formal complaint before the Labour Court of Liberia on April 27, 2009, against the Management of LPRC, alleging unfair labour practices and wrongful dismissal.”
Meanwhile, The LPRC redundant employees in their letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court – Sie-A-Nyene G. Yuoh, intimated that after a series of pre-trial conferences before the Labour Court Judge, Her Honour Com fort Natt dismissed the case in favour of LPRC, thus prompting them, the complaint to petition the Honourable Supreme Court of Liberia for JUDICIAL REVIEW.
The communication to the Chief Justice further revealed that, the Honourable Supreme Court of the Republic of Liberia, in its October Team 2018, under His Honour Chief Justice Francis S. Korkpor, Sr. heard the 1st Argument in said case on 17th December A.D. 2018, but the ruling was reserved. Also, in its March Term A.D. 2023, the Honourable Supreme Court, under Her Honour Sie-A-Nyene G. Yuoh heard the 2nd Argument and ruling also reserved.
The employees said that 92 of their fellow resentful countrymen had passed away from stress and frustration as a result of the lengthy wait for the Honourable Supreme Court to rule on the matter, leaving their families in a condition of unending despair.
Reported by: G Bennie Bravo Johnson, I.
Contact: +231 88 083 1935
