Equality, diversity and human rights

New and updated

• Type:

  FAQs

  Can an employer legitimately reject a disabled job applicant on the grounds of the costs/disruption to its organisation?

• Date:

  3 September 2004

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Discrimination: Employee's illegal acts prevent race discrimination remedy

  In V v Addey & Stanhope School, the Court of Appeal holds that the extent of the employee's illegal and criminal conduct was such that it prevented him from pursuing a race discrimination claim.

• Date:

  1 September 2004

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Nottinghamshire County Council v Meikle

  In Nottinghamshire County Council v Meikle [2004] IRLR 703 CA, the Court of Appeal held that putting an employee who was off sick for a disability-related reason on to half pay after a period of full pay was unjustified less favourable treatment where the employer had failed to make reasonable adjustments, which, had they been made, would have resulted in the employee's returning to work before she became liable to have her sick pay reduced.

• Date:

  6 August 2004

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: Extent of s.6 duty to make reasonable adjustments

  In Archibald v Fife Council, the House of Lords holds that an employment tribunal misconstrued the scope of the employer's duty to take reasonable steps to prevent any of its arrangements from placing a disabled employee at a substantial disadvantage in comparison with people who are not disabled.

• Date:

  1 August 2004

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  X v Y

  In X v Y [2004] IRLR 625 CA, the Court of Appeal held that the applicant had been fairly dismissed from his job working with youth offenders after he had been cautioned for gross indecency with another man in a public toilet and failed to disclose the fact that he had committed a criminal offence to his employers.

• Date:

  23 July 2004

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Pregnancy discrimination: Annual and maternity leave mutually exclusive

  In Merino Gomez v Continental Industrias del Caucho SA, the European Court of Justice holds that pregnant workers have a dual entitlement to annual leave and maternity leave: pregnant workers must be able to take their annual leave during a period other than their period of maternity leave.

• Date:

  2 July 2004

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Transsexual discrimination: Transsexual entitled to recognition of reassigned gender

  In A v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police and another, the House of Lords holds that refusing to employ a post-operative male-to-female transsexual was an act of unlawful discrimination.

• Date:

  1 July 2004

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Volunteers not "employees"

  Voluntary workers were not "employees" as defined in s.68 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, holds the EAT in South East Sheffield Citizens Advice Bureau v Grayson (17 November 2003).

• Date:

  18 June 2004

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Equal pay: SMP must include pay rise effective after reference period

  In Alabaster v Woolwich plc, the European Court of Justice holds that article 119 (now 141) of the EC Treaty of Rome requires that earnings-related maternity pay must reflect any pay rise awarded between the start of the reference period (upon which the level of the earnings-related maternity pay is based) and the end of the employee's maternity leave.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  A good loss: R (Amicus - MSF section) v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry

  The overwhelming majority of discrimination law cases are unsuccessful. If the decision is not one of an employment tribunal, it will be a binding precedent.