National Hospital Insurance Fund, Management Board v Kenya Union of Commercial, Food and Allied Workers & 2 others [2016] KEELRC 388 (KLR)

The court examined Article 230(4) and Article 260 definitions of public office and public officer, requiring remuneration payable directly from the Consolidated Fund or money provided by Parliament. NHIF's income derives from mandatory member contributions and investments under sections 15, 34 and 35 of the NHIF Act, with no parliamentary appropriation. Members' contributions are private property, not public funds, so the Fund's staff fall outside the SRC's constitutional mandate.

ILO Convention No. 98 requires voluntary negotiation; the ILO Committee of Experts report warns against intervention cancelling or modifying freely concluded collective agreements. The correspondence showed the petitioner was strait-jacketed, merely communicating the SRC's decisions, which was not negotiation. Since the SRC's role over non-state officers is advisory, it cannot insist its advice be adopted without modification; the regulations, deriving validity from the Constitution, cannot enlarge the SRC's jurisdiction without constitutional anchoring.

Having found that the SRC lacks jurisdiction over the petitioner and that its binding insistence was unconstitutional, the court declared the petitioner free to conclude the CBA negotiated in July 2013 with the 1st respondent.