Employment Law News
Wearing crosses / Tensions between rights of homosexuals and religious groups …at work
To the great joy of the Daily Mail, in the much publicised case of Eweida and Ors v UK, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Nadia Eweida, a practising Christian and British Airways check in worker should not have been prevented by BA from wearing a visible plain silver cross necklace. Whilst the European Court agreed that BA’s aim to promote their corporate image was reasonable, there was no evidence that employees wearing religious items had a detrimental impact on that image. The European Court decided that there had been a breach of Ms Eweida’s right to manifest her religion. The fact that BA subsequently amended their uniform policy demonstrated that the earlier prohibition was not very important.
By contrast though, Shirley Chaplin, who was a clinical nurse who was not permitted to wear a crucifix outside her uniform on the basis it was a health and safety risk to nurses and to patients failed in her case. The Court said that hospitals were better placed to make decisions about clinical safety than a Court.
Tensions between rights of homosexuals and religious groups …at work
To much less fanfare, but equally significantly, in conjoined cases, the European Court found that the rights of homosexuals trumped those of religious groups opposed to homosexuality.
Lillian Ladele, an Islington Council Marriages Registrar, and Gary McFarlane, a Relate Psycho-sexual Counsellor were dismissed for refusing to conduct civil partnership ceremonies and providing therapy to gay couples respectively. The European Court decided that both the Council and Relate had a legitimate policy to promote equal opportunities and to require their employees not to discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation.