Ezekiel Nyangoya Okemwa v Kenya Marine & Fisheries Research Institute

Rule 84 permits any person affected by an appeal to apply to strike out the notice of appeal or the appeal where no appeal lies or an essential step was not taken within the prescribed time. However, the proviso bars such applications brought after thirty days from service of the notice of appeal or record of appeal. Since service was effected on 22nd August 2019 and the application was lodged on 20th September 2019, within the thirtieth day (21st September 2019), it was properly before the Court.

Rule 82 fixes sixty days from lodgement of the Notice of Appeal, subject to the proviso excluding time certified by the registrar as required for preparation and delivery of proceedings. The Certificate of Delay showed the application for proceedings was made within thirty days of the decision, and time ran afresh from the certificate date, expiring on 19th September 2019. The Record of Appeal filed on 16th August 2019 was thus within time, notwithstanding the Notice of Appeal of 2016.

The applicant relied on the Employment and Labour Relations Court's typing Dispatch Book to show proceedings were typed as early as 2016. The Court held the copy was uncertified, so its source and author could not be verified; the entries were crossed over and unclear; and, decisively, Rule 82 recognizes only the application for proceedings and the registrar's certificate as relevant documents for computing or excluding time. The Dispatch Book of a typing pool is not a relevant document for purposes of Rule 82.