The adage “obey now and grieve later” (which requires employees to obey lawful and reasonable instructions by superiors and to challenge any indiscretions later) still holds true today, a judge said.

He found that the firing of a prison official who twice refused to take an inmate to hospital was fair. The Johannesburg Labour Appeal Court remarked that the “obey now and grieve later” concept is even more fundamental in law enforcement institutions, where obedience is imperative.

A prison official, who worked at the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre, west of Pretoria, was fired by the department for disobeying an instruction to take the prisoner to hospital. The CCMA later confirmed his dismissal, while the Labour Court deemed it unfair.

It ordered his reinstatement, coupled with a final warning. Unhappy with this verdict, the department turned to the Labour Appeal Court.

The case centred around whether the fired official, only identified as TN Kutu, disobeyed a lawful instruction from his unit manager or whether, on Kutu's version, he only disobeyed a request.

The manager testified that he received a call from the prison clinic requesting an escort to take an inmate to Kalafong Hospital. The nurse advised him that the inmate had a kidney and bladder problem, and as a result, could not urinate.

The manager asked Kutu to assist with escorting the inmate to the hospital. Kutu refused, stating that as it was his birthday, he was going to knock off at noon.

The manager testified that he was not convinced it was Kutu's birthday as he had been working with him for a long time. He went to human resources to verify Kutu's birthday. It then transpired that Kutu was dishonest as his birthday was only later in the year.

Kutu claimed he had confused his birthday with that of his wife's.

The manager once more requested Kutu to assist with escorting the inmate to the hospital, but he refused because he was going for lunch.

It was not in dispute that as a correctional officer, Kutu's duties included escorting inmates to court or hospital. Yet Kutu denied that he was given reasonable instruction to escort the inmate to the hospital.

His evidence was that the manager informed him that he was requesting assistance but did not specifically order him to escort the inmate. Hence, he told him that he was going for lunch.

Kutu also testified that he was a victim of a conspiracy to dismiss him because he had changed trade unions.

He was fired following disciplinary proceedings.

The Labour Court, which ordered his reinstatement, said this was unreasonable as Kutu had been employed by the department for around 17 years, and it cannot be said that he was a problem employee.

But on appeal, the court said the Labour Court judge was mistaken, as the evidence on record shows that Kutu had three existing disciplinary warnings emanating from past wrongdoing, on insubordination. Kutu simply denied any knowledge of the warnings.

In upholding the appeal by the department, the court found that Kutu was given a direct order, which he had disobeyed. The sanction of dismissal was reasonable and accordingly unassailable, the court said.

zelda.venter@inl.co.za

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'Obey now, grieve later': court upholds prison official's dismissal for refusing hospital duty

Court upholds prison official's dismissal for refusing hospital duty