Maina Munyua v Amref Health Africa (previously Africa Medical and Research Foundation Kenya)

Section 19 of the Medical Laboratory Technicians and Technologists Act prohibits acting as a laboratory technician without registration and criminalises both unregistered practice and employment of unregistered persons. The appellant had not passed all required examination papers, and the Act contains no provision permitting provisional registration, so his claimed provisional licence could not legitimize the engagement. Subsequent directions to acquire qualifications could not cure the original statutory violation.

The letter of termination gave two months' notice effective 1st March 2014 with the last working day as 30th April 2014, and required the employee to take pending leave during the notice period. This matched Clause 16.2.1 of the Service Agreement signed by the parties on 31st March 2012, satisfying the Court that the process was procedurally fair under the contract.

The Court held that once the employment was established to be contrary to statute, the appellant was barred from asserting the discrimination claim. Independently, the appellant tendered no sufficient proof that the intern who replaced him lacked professional qualifications, so the unequal-treatment argument under section 5 of the Employment Act was not made out.

Relying on section 47(5) of the Employment Act and the Supreme Court's decision in Gwer v Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Court reiterated that the employee bears the overriding obligation to lay substantial material before the court to discharge the evidential burden before the burden shifts to the employer. The trial Judge was found not to have erred in this respect.