The appointment in 2018 of assessor judges in the cities of Goma, Matadi, Kikwit, Kolwezi, Kisangani and Boma in the DRC followed the country’s positive experience with the labour courts in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi, which had been set up in a pilot phase. 

The Congolese authorities had decided to set up labour courts in the DRC's provinces after observing that the provincial labour inspectorates generally failed to settle disputes between employees and employers fairly. Employers often paid bribes to the labour inspectors and cases were thus settled in their favour, or they used delaying tactics until the employee concerned abandoned their petition. 

The success of the labour courts in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi prompted the authorities to extend the measure, but without considering how the assessor judges appointed in 2018 would be paid. These assessor judges had been recruited from the employees' and employers' representative organisations to ensure a balance in the handling of cases.

Since 2019, the newly appointed assessor judges have sent letters demanding their salaries to the government, the presidency and the national parliament, but, according to assessor judge Michel Mulume Munene, no favourable response has been forthcoming, Munene was appointed to the Goma labour court and is president of the General Council of Congolese Workers (CGTCO). 

The assessor judges have organised strikes and work stoppages for up to four months at a time without the authorities doing anything to settle the issue of their unpaid salaries, apart from giving them further promises. After being unable to meet the prime minister in Goma at the end of May as he’d hoped to do, Munene decided to address the media in the hopes of reaching the head of government. 

The unpaid assessor judges consider this lack of payment to be a social injustice, as their colleagues in the pilot labour courts in Lubumbashi and Kinshasa are paid regularly. In one of their very first letters, dated 15 April 2019, nine assessor judges from the Goma labour court called on the Congolese government to enforce the DRC’s labour laws. 

Without salaries, the assessor judges are open to corruption in the exercise of their responsibilities, because it is a question of survival, explained Munene. He said that despite creating these labour courts, the government has not resolved the issue of the inability of provincial inspectorates to settle disputes between employees and employers, given that the problem of bribes or corruption can prevent some judges from acting lawfully during trials. 

Despite being unpaid, in the last five years the assessor judges have handled 257 cases relating to workplace disputes in Goma alone. The Kisangani labour court has now decided to close its doors following the non-payment of salaries to its judges. 

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