In Page v NHS Trust Development Authority, the Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld an employment tribunal decision that there was no religious discrimination where a non-executive director was suspended after voicing his opposition to same-sex couple adoption in the media.
In The City of Oxford Bus Services Ltd t/a Oxford Bus Company v Harvey, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that, when deciding if an employer's working arrangements are justified, the tribunal must focus on justifying the rule in the particular circumstances of the business, rather than the application of the rule to the individual.
In Gan Menachem Hendon Ltd v De Groen, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that a claim of direct religious discrimination cannot be sustained simply on the basis that an employer acted in the way it did because of its own religious beliefs.
In Lee v Ashers Baking Co Ltd and others, the Supreme Court held that a Christian bakery did not commit direct sexual orientation discrimination in the provision of goods and services when it refused to fulfil a cake order with a message in support of same-sex marriage.
In Gray v Mulberry Company (Design) Ltd, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that a tribunal had been entitled to conclude, on the particular facts, that a belief in the importance of copyright ownership lacked sufficient cogency to qualify as a philosophical belief.
In Bakkali v Greater Manchester Buses (South) Ltd t/a Stage Coach Manchester, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that asking a Muslim employee whether or not he supported IS did not amount to harassment because, given the context, the offending comment was not "related to" his religious belief or race.
In Achbita and another v G4S Secure Solutions [2017] IRLR 466 ECJ, the ECJ held that an employer's rule prohibiting employees from wearing any visible signs of belief, including the hijab, did not amount to direct discrimination.
In Bougnaoui and another v Micropole SA [2017] IRLR 447 ECJ, the ECJ held that an employer in France could not use the reluctance of a customer to deal with any worker wearing an Islamic headscarf to defend the dismissal of a Muslim worker because she wore the hijab.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that there was no religious discrimination when a Christian prison employee faced disciplinary action for quoting a passage from the bible and "speaking about homosexuality as a sin" during a chapel service.
The Supreme Court has held that an incremental pay structure that put Muslim chaplains in the prison service at a disadvantage compared to their Christian colleagues was indirectly discriminatory, but was justified.