A "Wiccan" who claimed that she was mocked and later dismissed after switching her shifts to celebrate All Hallows' Eve has won a religion or belief discrimination claim, in what may be the first successful case of its kind in UK employment law.
James Buckle, Gerri Hurst, Joelle Parkinson, Chris McAvoy and Helen Samuel are associate solicitors at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.
This employment tribunal found that the Equality Act 2010 does not protect a claimant who believes that "the Jewish religion's professed belief in Jews being 'God's chosen people' is at odds with a meritocratic and multicultural society".
This employment tribunal considered whether or not it was discrimination for a manager with health and safety concerns to ask a Muslim interviewee about her unusually long religious dress.
In Heafield v Times Newspaper Ltd EAT/1305/12, the EAT held that there was no harassment based on religion or belief when an employee took offence at a colleague's comment using an expletive when referring to the Pope. In the context in which the remark was made, it could not reasonably be viewed as sufficiently offensive to amount to harassment.
This employment tribunal held that a Christian telesales agent's belief that potential customers should not be deceived to obtain sales could be protected under the Equality Act 2010. However, the claimant lost his case because he did not present sufficient evidence that his former employer had required him to lie to potential customers.
The employment tribunal in this case found that the owner of a small business discriminated against an employee who was dismissed after he refused to convert to the owner's sect of Islam.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has upheld a tribunal decision that the context of a remark is important when assessing whether or not it constituted harassment.
The European Court of Human Rights has held that a Christian employee's right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion under art.9 of the European Convention on Human Rights was breached when the UK courts found that she was not discriminated against by British Airways' uniform policy, which prevented her from wearing visible items of jewellery at work.