The Senate has asked the High Court to dismiss a petition by techies who are opposed to a law granting immunity to global tech firms such as Meta and Google, from prosecution for labour and human rights violations.
Senate says the case challenging the Business Laws (Amendment) Bill 2024 is speculative and premature.
The Bill, which grants tech companies immunity from being sued in Kenya for labour and human rights violations, has since been transmitted to the National Assembly for consideration.
There are ongoing court cases where workers including content moderators have sued Meta- the owner of Facebook, for alleged human rights violations and toxic work environment.
The techies are apprehensive that if passed into law, the Act will prevent future legal action against global tech firms, for similar abuses.
“The orders sought in the application and the petition further violate the principle of separation of powers that requires each arm of government to carry out their roles independently and without interference from the other arms of government,” the Senate said in response.
The Senate added it was not necessary to grant the orders stopping the processing of the Bill, as the court can still exercise its powers in the event it is passed into law.
According to the Senate, the lawmakers passed the Bill pursuant to their constitutional mandate and the orders being sought were therefore, an affront to the legislative role of Parliament.
The court directed the tech workers to serve the court documents on the National Assembly and set the case for mention on November 25, for directions.
The 34 tech workers stated that while the Senate had asked the public to submit memoranda on the Bill, no real effort was made to consider the documents.
Further, they said a public participation report was not presented to the Senate, and the tech workers were, therefore, denied an opportunity to meaningfully participate in the legislative process.
Tech workers said of interest to them is Clause 10 of the Bill, which provides that in cases where tech workers have been engaged through Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies acting as agents for tech companies, it is the BPO that would be liable for any claim raised by tech workers regardless of whether another party (the tech company) was responsible for providing the tools of trade and was the sole beneficiary of the tech worker’s labour.
The impact of the provision, argued tech workers, is to cushion tech companies from being held accountable for violations of Kenyan laws.
“While the Business Laws (Amendment) Bill has yet to be considered by the National Assembly and therefore yet to become law, the harm addressed by this Petition has materialised, making this Petition one that is ripe for consideration by the court,” stated the petition.
The petitioners pointed out that the extensive use of these technology services in Kenya and in Africa has created a huge appetite for tech workers to power their operations.
