Equality, diversity and human rights

New and updated

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  State immunity cannot prevent claims for EU employment law breaches

  The Supreme Court has held that the State Immunity Act 1978 cannot prevent embassy staff from enforcing workplace rights derived from EU employment laws.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Indirect sex discrimination: Greek police academy's height restriction not justified

  The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has held that a height restriction for applicants to the Greek police academy cannot be justified and constitutes indirect sex discrimination.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Sex discrimination: Withdrawal of offer to female chef of paid extra work at all-male event

  An employment tribunal has held that an employer committed direct sex discrimination when it rejected a female chef's request to do paid extra work at a private event organised by the head of sales, who said that it was an all-male event and that a male chef would be preferable.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination: Older worker told she would be "better suited to a traditional estate agency"

  An employment tribunal has held that an estate agent administrator who resigned after she was told that she would be "better suited to a traditional estate agency" was subjected to age discrimination.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: No harassment claim possible where disability not established

  In Peninsula Business Service Ltd v Baker [2017] IRLR 394 EAT, the EAT held that, for a claim of harassment to succeed in a case involving the protected characteristic of disability, it is not enough for the alleged harassment to be "related to" disability in a general sense. The claimant must actually have a disability to bring the claim.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Religious discrimination: Prohibition of visible signs of belief did not amount to direct discrimination

  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.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Religious discrimination: Customer's reluctance to accept services of hijab-wearing employee not genuine and determining occupational requirement

  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.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Monitoring work-related Yahoo account breached employee's human rights

  In this Romanian case, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has held that monitoring the employee's private use of a business messaging account amounted to a breach of his right to private life and correspondence under art.8.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Religious discrimination: Disciplinary action due to homophobic comments, not Christian beliefs

  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.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Court of Appeal rules on impact of human rights law on collective consultation rights

  The Court of Appeal has held that the legislative provision that excludes park police constables from enjoying collective consultation rights is in breach of their, and their union's, art.11 rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.