The Industrial Court has faulted National Medical Stores (NMS) for unfairly dismissing its former Chief Pharmacist, Atanasius Kakwemeire, following an unlawful change to his contract.
Kakwemeire was hired by NMS on November 15, 2017, as Chief Pharmacist under a four-year contract due to run until November 2021.
Everything changed in February 2020 when the NMS Board restructured its departments. His job title was altered to Chief Quality Control Officer.
Kakwemeire signed the amended contract but immediately began protesting the change through emails, insisting he was still the Chief Pharmacist and that his original contract had never been lawfully terminated.
He repeatedly resisted instructions tied to the new role, maintaining that the redesignation was illegal. Kakwemeire even claimed that he signed the amended contract under pressure.
NMS did not like this behaviour, and by November 2020, it had initiated disciplinary proceedings against him.
It accused him of “insubordination, dishonesty, disobeying lawful orders, refusal to perform his duties, and fundamental breach of the employment contract.”
Following a hearing before the board disciplinary committee, Kakwemeire was dismissed in December 2020.
He ran to court, arguing that his dismissal was not just unfair but was rooted in an earlier illegality. His main complaint was that his contract had been changed without his consent.
He told the court that the redesignation from Chief Pharmacist to Chief Quality Control Officer was a demotion and an unlawful alteration of a statutory office.
He argued that the NMS board had no power to change his position without legal backing and proper agreement.
His lawyer, Isaac Walukagga, from MMAKS, submitted that the termination was unlawful because the reasons given, including insubordination, had not been properly proved.
He argued that Kakwemeire’s resistance could not amount to misconduct because he was defending his original contract.
On the other side, lawyers Esau Isingoma and Richard Bibangamba for NMS argued that the restructuring was lawful and within the Board’s powers.
They told the court that Kakwemeire had signed the amended contract, accepted the new role, continued working and receiving a salary, and was later dismissed only after a proper disciplinary process.
They insisted the dismissal was lawful, fair, and in accordance with NMS’s human resource manual.
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After hearing both sides, the court broke the dispute into two key questions.
First, whether the dismissal process itself was fair.
On this, Justice Anthony Wabwire Musana and others on the panel largely sided with NMS.
They found that Kakwemeire was notified of the allegations, given time to prepare a defence, allowed representation, and heard by the disciplinary committee.
“[NMS] complied with the procedural requirements of a fair hearing… [and] was procedurally fair,” they ruled.
But the second and more important question was whether there was a valid reason to dismiss him.
Here, the judges took a very different view.
They found that the root of the conflict was the employer’s unilateral change to Kakwemeire’s contract.
In strong language, the judges held that changing a job title is a fundamental alteration that requires agreement.
“Where the element of consent is absent, such variation is unlawful,” they ruled.
The judges went further and said NMS did not seek Kakwemeire’s consent before the board passed a resolution to change his title,
The court also dismissed the argument that Kakwemeire’s signature on the amended contract meant he had agreed.
“Far from it, the evidence shows that he stubbornly protested,” the court observed.
Ultimately, the court concluded that NMS exercised its managerial powers unfairly.
The court noted that although the disciplinary hearing against Kakwemeire was properly conducted, the underlying reason for his dismissal was tainted by an earlier illegality.
The court therefore found that the dismissal was not justified in law.
On remedies, Kakwemeire had asked for several things, including a declaration that his dismissal was unlawful, damages, severance pay, and payment of salary for the remainder of his contract.
The judges affirmed his entitlement to relief flowing from the unlawful dismissal, including compensation linked to his contract and damages. However, no specific figure was given as this will be determined later.
