Equality, diversity and human rights

New and updated

• 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.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Supreme Court rules on equal pension benefits for civil partners and same-sex spouses

  The Supreme Court has overturned the Court of Appeal's decision and held that civil partners and same-sex spouses are entitled to pension benefits accrued before the introduction of civil partnerships on 5 December 2005.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Discrimination arising from disability: Dismissal of disabled worker on final absence warning

  The employment tribunal held that the dismissal of a disabled employee on a final written attendance warning following an absence unrelated to her disabilities constituted discrimination arising from disability.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Discrimination arising from disability: Sickness absence levels revealed in reference

  The employment tribunal held that the claimant's former employer committed discrimination arising from disability after providing details of his sickness absence levels to a prospective employer and stating that it would not re-employ him.