Equality, diversity and human rights >
Religion or belief discrimination
An employer was entitled to turn down an employee's request for five consecutive weeks' annual leave in the summer to attend religious festivals with his family in Sardinia, in a useful case for employers faced with an employee asking for a long block of holiday for religious reasons.
An employment tribunal has held that the removal of the Koran from a Muslim employee's locker during a locker clearance while he was on paid leave was not religion or belief discrimination.
An employment tribunal has held that the claimant was subjected to indirect discrimination by the employer's requirement that she work on a Saturday where her religion prohibited Saturday working.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has dismissed an appeal against an employment tribunal decision that there was no religious discrimination against a Muslim interviewee who was asked by an interviewer about the potential for her unusually long religious dress to provide a trip hazard.
In a case report from Trowers & Hamlins, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) considered whether or not an employee who held left-wing democratic socialist beliefs and fell within the scope of philosophical belief protection afforded under the Equality Act 2010 was unlawfully discriminated against and unlawfully harassed.
The employment tribunal held that a manager's use of bad language that included the words "Jesus Christ" and "God" did not harass a Christian employee.
The employment tribunal held that a police worker's "profound belief in the proper and efficient use of public money in the public sector" is not a "philosophical belief" under the Equality Act 2010.
This employment tribunal refused to allow the concept of a "philosophical belief" under the Equality Act 2010 to be extended to protect the claimant's views that "homosexuality is contrary to God's law and nature" and "no Jewish people were killed by the use of poison gas in concentration camps during the Second World War".
This employment tribunal held that the belief in the importance of public service held by an individual who became the mayor of Liverpool is a "philosophical belief" under the Equality Act 2010.
In Bull and another v Hall and another [2013] UKSC 73 SC, the Supreme Court held that Christian hotel owners directly discriminated against a same-sex couple who were civil partners when they refused them a double-bedded room in accordance with their policy of letting such rooms to married couples only.
HR and legal information and guidance relating to religion or belief discrimination.