Policeman’s six transfers illegal, Labour court tells IG

A court in Nyeri has ruled that the Inspector-General of Police (IG) and his deputy violated a police officer’s rights after transferring him six times to different police stations in a span of two years.

In his judgement, Justice Njagi Marete of the Employment and Labour Relations Court declared Corporal Alex Nkanda’s many transfers illegal.

The judge said that the National Police Service Commission, the IG and the deputy IG, who are listed as the first, second and third respondents in the suit, violated the officer’s constitutional rights through the inconsiderate and random transfers to various counties.

According to Justice Marete, it is only the police commission that is allowed to mandate the transfer of police officers.

“Even so, the Constitution requires that an officer should have served for a continuous period of one year and a maximum of three before he is deployed to another station,” said the judge.

In the suit, the judge found that the respondents transferred Corporal Nkanda discriminatively, as a way of punishing him.

Transfer letter quashed

He quashed a transfer letter written by the respondents requiring the officer, who is currently working at the Magumu Traffic Base in Nyandarua County, to move back to Kizingitini Police Station in Lamu County.

At the time of receiving the letter, Mr Nkanda had served in Nyandarua for only three weeks.

In his orders, the judge also restrained the respondents from interfering in any way with Mr Nkanda’s duties at the Magumu Traffic Base.

Corporal Nkanda had been working at the Kizingitini Police Station from August 17, 2020 before he was transferred to Magumu.

Prior to that, he had worked at the Likoni Police Station in Mombasa for a period of two months.

While in Likoni, a letter dated June 19, 2020, which was presented produced in court, showed that he had been asked to report to Kaharati Police Station in Murang’a.

Delayed by Covid-19

But his transfer to Murang’a was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Interestingly, after a period of less than a week, he was instead told to go back to the Likoni Police Station.

He has also worked at the Naivasha Traffic Base in Nakuru where he joined the police force on October 28, 2019.

Before that, he had been transferred from Magumu Traffic Base where he had worked for six months.

He also served at Thika Police Base in Kiambu County in 2018.

Through lawyer Wahome Gikonyo, the officer told the court that he was not given any reasons for the transfers.

Disciplinary sanctions

He said that the deployments were used as disciplinary sanctions as they were not instituted by the commission.

“This is malice by the respondents since there are over 10,000 police officers in the Kenya Police Service who are not being transferred in the same manner,” Mr Gikonyo told the court.

Mr Nkanda said that the transfers had affected his children who had to keep changing schools because of his work.

But the respondents, through lawyers Sarah Muthiga and Mr Njoroge argued that as a police officer, Corporal Nkanda ought to be available for service at any police station in the country.

The police bosses denied claims of bias, saying that some of the transfers were actually made after Mr Nkanda’s request.

But in other cases, the transfer letters were forged, they claimed.

“The petitioner was never deployed to Kaharati police base and the alleged signal of the transfer is fictitious and a forgery,” lawyer Muthiga told the court.

She requested the court to dismiss the suit, noting that the petitioner had not exhausted available internal dispute resolution channels in the police service before moving to court.

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