Mackereth v Department for Work and Pensions & Anor

EAT, Eady J, Mr D Bleiman and Mr D G Smith, [2022] EAT 99, 29 June 2022

The claimant, a doctor and former full-time evangelist, was engaged as a health and disabilities assessor (DAD) by the second defendant which provided services for the DWP. The role involved assessing individuals who applied for disability-related benefits, including in face-to-face interviews. Whereas the DWP’s policy was to refer to transgender people by their preferred names and titles, the claimant promptly objected to speaking to or about people other than in terms consist with their sex registered at birth. He was dismissed after a month and complained that he had been subject to harassment, direct and indirect discrimination because of his religious and/or philosophical beliefs. Continue reading

For Women Scotland Limited v (1) The Lord Advocate, (2) The Scottish Ministers

Court of Session (Inner House): Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Malcolm, Lord Pentland, [2022] CSIH 4, 18 February 2022

This was a challenge brought by way of judicial review to the Scottish Government’s decision by way of the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 to implement certain positive action measures which treated as a “woman” a “person [who] is living as a woman and is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of becoming female.” Continue reading

Biden v Waverley Borough Council

Court of Appeal: Macur, Asplin and Coulson LJJ, [2022] EWCA Civ 442, 1 April 2022

The Court of Appeal dismissed the claimant’s appeal against the dismissal of her claim that the respondent authority had breached the PSED by failing to make the inquiries the claimant deemed necessary on matters relating to the incidence of gender reassignment hate crime in the area of the accommodation offered to the claimant with the assistance of  an LGBT liaison officer, rather than a police support community officer. Continue reading

Forstater v CGD Europe & Ors

EAT: Choudhury P, Mr C Edwards and Mrs MV McArthur) UKEAT/0105/20/JOJ, [2021] IRLR 706, 10 June 2021

The EAT allowed the claimant’s appeal against a finding of the employment tribunal (Employment Judge Tayler) that the claimant’s “gender critical” views fell outwith the protection afforded by the EqA to “belief”. The EAT ruled that the tribunal had misapplied the test in Grainger plc v Nicholson (2009) the fifth element of which (which concerned whether a belief was worthy of respect in a democratic society) imposed a very low threshold which served to exclude from protection only those beliefs which would excluded from the protection of Articles 9 and/or 10 ECHR by Article 17 thereof. Continue reading