Had a cheap lobotomy recently? from Brett

By your reply you tipped your hand that you want self instead of God.

Sean Fear

Your point is taken but the failure to consult, unilateral change of terms of contract, etc are very common occurrences in Employment law.

There are very clear procedural steps that have to be undertaken for which there are sanctions for breech.

The thing is these are all seperate causes of action and hence relate to very different heads and quantum of damages.

in this judgement the unacceptable behaviour of islington council and any aspects of Employment law that were breached is merely background though it may well be the reason for the judgement and is certainly ‘morally’ the reason felt by many commenters.

this potential unlawfullnness by islington should have been addressed by ammendment of the claim not by warping the judgement.

the ratio of the case is on the claim of the three heads of discrmination which in my opinion should all have been dismissed.

tribunals tend to take a relaxed view of such things and may try to get the ‘right result ‘ by the wrong law.

This can’t be tolerated at a higher court level.

technically appeals are on matters of law not fact 9though as you know mixed law and fact is law).

But as there is no record of the facts or hearing, even in cases of blatant perversity or procedural impropriety, irrationality /disproportionality etc it is really difficult to work out what happened so rather than risk further appeal or JR, the EAT has sweeping powers to ammend the claim, dismiss or more commonly to remit back for ‘reconsideration’ or more strongly for a re-hearing.

if it is the case that the Employment equality (Religion or belief) regulations 2003 have been so poorly drafted that any tribunal could fairly reach similar conclusions then the Government will have to ammend them though that would not happen before an EAT appeal.

However considering the case law in other areas of discrmination and the specific guidance on these regulations from ACAS, i dont’ think so.

For instance the guidance specifically states that a criteria of employment that required employees to workdk late on friddays would not necessarily discriminate against Moslems if it could be justified;;

…’

In contrast to direct discrimination, indirect discrimination will not be
unlawful if it can be justified. To justify it, an employer must show that
there is a legitimate aim, (ie a real business need) and that the practice
is proportionate to that aim (ie necessary and there is no alternative
means available).

Example: A small finance company needs its staff to work late on a
Friday afternoon to analyse stock prices in the American finance market.
The figures arrive late on Friday because of the global time differences.
During the winter months some staff would like to be released early on
Friday afternoon in order to be home before nightfall – a requirement of
their religion. They propose to make the time up later during the
remainder of the week.
The company is not able to agree to this request because the American
figures are necessary to the business, they need to be worked on
immediately and the company is too small to have anyone else able to
do the work.
The requirement to work on Friday afternoon is not unlawful
discrimination as it meets a legitimate business aim and there is no
alternative means available…..

http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/f/l/religion_1.pdf

As I say the finding of direct discrimination requires that Christians (of whom ladelle was one) were treated less favourably as a result of their belief.

The finding of indirect discrimination requires that the requirment to perform civil partnerships discriminated selectively against Christians (as a requirment for bowler hats might discriminate against Sikhs.

Evidence that many other Christians had no problem with the civil partnership and did not find themselves less favourably treated would scotch that.

Honestly before i even commented on this i did the adversarial thing of running both arguments for and against and i really feel that if I was for the claimant I should have lost.

Furthermore the damages are set at the more punitive level of discrimination not the procedural abuse that she faced by islington.

Protection of the public purse on policy grounds always motivates judges to severely restrict the scope against public authorities, always.

I really don’t believe this judgement in this form can stand for long.

Anyway that just my opinion time will tell. As I am anonymous I am not touting for business.

“Thank God you”ve never represented me in court”. I’d be doing 20 years to life!

You should be.

Oh and check out the thread above to see which way your party is moving on this one!

Don’t want to be off message do we

No. But you make the extent of your ego extremely clear.

Are themselves sterotypical and somwehat prejudiced but do not themselves indicate a willingness to homophobically discriminate.

Thanks for that unique insight.

So ChrisC my professional opinion is that this judgement will not stand for long, certainly not until the House of Lords.

its a kick in the teeth to the Governments equality legislation ChrisC, which as a party parrot I would have thought you more sensitive too

I take it you give Evening classes in English in your spare time.

I am not a law Lord as ChrisC correctly surmises but I have argued Employment law discrimination cases before the Court of Appeals and I would say that I have a reasonable competence in this area.

I can only say “Thank God you”ve never represented me in court”. I’d be doing 20 years to life!

Unfortunately, the people you disapprove of also have votes. That’s what makes so many of these arguments so unreal. They assume the people you disapprove of have no power to influence legislation.

Mettaculture, I don’t practise employment law (property and inheritance is my field) but my wife is an HR specialist, and I was Chairman of the Personnel Committee of a local authority, so I can at least comprehend the judgement. As I read it, Marriage Registars did not simply have civil partnerships tacked onto their duties in 2004. In fact, the Act says no one may perform civil partnerships unless and until they become Civil Partnership Registrars. That implies that these are two separate functions, and (it would appear) Islington acted unlawfully by designating her a Civil Partnership Registrar (a) without consulting her and (b) without even telling her.

WRT Ladelle’s request, surely Islington had already sold the pass by accomodating one employee who objected to performing civil partnerships? They had already demonstrated that they could provide the necessary service.

I take your point about tribunals. They come up with some daft decisions. Possibly some of the findings here are appealable, but I don’t think the majority are, unless the Tribunal has totally misunderstood the facts of the case, or Miss Ladelle is shown to have perjured herself.

In my view, religion is a real crock, and there is a tendency for ultra religious people to go looking for trouble. In truth, these folk are very very vain. They seek to make themselves appear holier than thou, by stirring up a shitstorm.

The only way to stop this escalating is to amend the law, and make it clear that religion, moral values, personal ethics have no status in the public sphere. The law, and contracts drafted under English Law, must make no exemptions.

The finding of indirect discrimination is that the Civil partnership act 2004 itself intoduced a ‘criteria, measure or requirement’ (the test of indirect discrimination) that is the requirment to conduct same sex civil partnerships, to the job of registrar, that in itself discriminated against ladelle because of her Christian beliefs.

This is the astounding and far reaching (and wrong) ruling. It has nothing to do with her treatment.

The reasoning on indirect discrimination goes like this;

What is her claim of discrmination?

I am a Christian as a matter of conscience I do not approve of Gay marriage, making me conduct gay marriages discriminates me.

(NB this rubbish was accepted as fact, because apparently unchallenged by the tribunal which also found direct Discrimination)

(arguably Christianity makes no such claim upon her conscience, she had no such conscience (and this is the legal relevance of her own conduct and Bretts comments) whether she disapproved of gay marriage is irrelevant as despite her opinion in law she was not being asked to conduct a gay marriage).

Accepting that this Rubbish was held to be correct the tribunal should still have tested the issue of indirect discrmination and justifiability/proportionality.

In fact the issue of justifiability would work the other way.

If it is the case that the 2004 act introduced a requirement (to conduct civil partnerships) that indirectly discrinminated against ladelle was it justifiable?

Did it discriminate idnirectly against ladelle?

if you accept all the rubbish she says is true then yes

1) Was such a requirement justifiable?

yes because it is the law and is necessary to acheive the aim, also the councils legal obligation, to secure equality and non discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, disability, religion, sexual orientation.

if it was justifiable in law was it proportionate in practice?

yes because to oblige ladelle to conform with her duties or seek redeployment was the proportionate response to deal with her intransigence given that other religiously motivated people had either resigned, conformed, or accepted a compromise.

To accomodate ladelles unreasonable request, when the consequences of not doing so only had consequences for her would have required that the Council unlawfully discriminate against lesbian and gay citizens in contravention of their statutory obligations and the legal intention of Parliament in passing the 2004 act.

I would go further than to say that the judgment of the tribunal is simply wrong it is unlawful.

I am not a law Lord as ChrisC correctly surmises but I have argued Employment law discrimination cases before the Court of Appeals and I would say that I have a reasonable competence in this area.

An Employment Tribunal is not really a court at all but an inferior tribunal a court not of record (ie no record is kept of proceedings).

It has a limited jurisdiction of a unique kind that was originally set up to be an industrial dispute resolution system with informal and less than strictly legal approaches to law and evidence where Employees could easily represent themselves.

Well the tribunals (a panel of 3 with a chair not a judge though with some legal background a wing from the business sector and a wing from the employees advisory sector generally a trade unionist) saw the end of that hope.

These tribunals are ultimately subject (after a 1st appeal at the EAT) to the real civil law.

I would argue that it is beyond the powers of a tribunal (indeed the courts) to rule that an act of parliament is unlawful, which is exactly what the ruling on indirect discrimination does, it does not say a procedure of the Coucil but the requirements of the Act itself caused unlawful discrimination.

A real court can quash any finding of a tribunal and as there was no record it becomes void and the hearing can be made to commence again.

This would be very embarassing for the tribunal system and in my experience the Tribunal chairman at an Employment Appeals Tribunal would do that and push it back to start again rather than uphold the decision and be flayed in the court of appeals.

So ChrisC my professional opinion is that this judgement will not stand for long, certainly not until the House of Lords.

Technically it sets no precedent (though does set a nasty tone of influence) so it would be a very foolhardy tribunal chair that follows this ruling before seeing what happens.

its a kick in the teeth to the Governments equality legislation ChrisC, which as a party parrot I would have thought you more sensitive too, and they may well be motivated to ammend the Religious non discrimination act to make it quite clear that it is protecting people not religious opinion or belief.