Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Latest News

Anti-religious discrimination ‘could confuse’

by Personnel Today 25 Oct 2002
by Personnel Today 25 Oct 2002

Plans
to outlaw religious discrimination in the workplace could confuse employers,
law firm Beachcroft Wansbroughs has warned.

Rachel
Dineley, a partner at Beachcroft Wansbroughs believes the draft
anti-discrimination legislation published this week could also require
employment tribunals to make value judgements on what beliefs should be
protected by law.

The
firm believes that the draft is fundamentally flawed because it does not define
what a ‘religious or philosophical belief’ should be – leaving the issue open
to interpretation.

With
a philosophy explained only as ‘similar to a religious belief’, any employment
tribunal assessing a religious discrimination case would need to decide whether
the personal convictions concerned fall within the legislation.

Dineley
said: "This central issue needs clarification. In its draft form, the
legislation would require the chair of any employment tribunal to make
essentially philosophical decisions before allegations of discrimination could
be considered.

"Apart
from the added complications this will cause, tribunals themselves could be
open to challenge on the decisions they make, without further guidance, on what
grounds should they make their assessment.”

In
drafting the Framework Directive (from which this new legislation is drawn),
the European Commission made clear it was not intended to protect political
groups. 

However,
the term ‘philosophical’ might well be applied to strongly held political convictions.  The distinction between religious and
political belief could prove very difficult to draw."

Dineley
believes the proposed law could lead to conflict with existing race
discrimination legislation. "Consider an employee who posts evangelical literature
on a company noticeboard which offends his work colleagues from a different
ethnic background," he said.

"Under
current law regarding race discrimination, an employer might be advised to
remove such material to avoid a potential claim from other sections of the
workforce and to take disciplinary action against the individual.

"However,
under this draft legislation, it’s possible that the employee could seek
redress in respect of such disciplinary action by arguing that he had been
subjected to an unlawful detriment.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

"It
would be up to a tribunal to try and resolve this conflict, but the current
draft legislation offers little guidance or support".

By Ben Willmott

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Government slammed over troubled ILAs
next post
Voluntary sector gender pay gap shortens

You may also like

Black workers face greatest risk from workplace surveillance

30 May 2025

Capita and PizzaExpress named for minimum wage underpayments

29 May 2025

Charlie Mayfield: HR needs more proactive approach to...

29 May 2025

Warning issued over loss of ‘frictionless’ business travel...

29 May 2025

Streeting appeals to resident doctors to vote against...

29 May 2025

Unfairly dismissed TUC workers awarded £100k

29 May 2025

Recruitment outlook improves, despite employment law fears

29 May 2025

Missing mug leads to failed race discrimination claim

29 May 2025

HMRC releases research on removing salary sacrifice tax...

28 May 2025

Call-handler sues Met Police over reinstatement of offensive...

28 May 2025

  • Preparing for a new era of workforce planning (webinar) WEBINAR | Employers now face...Read more
  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+