Visible Religious Symbols: European Court Ruling — House of Commons, 2017-03-15
Topic: Civil Rights
Caroline Julia Dinenage (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this important issue and for giving the Government an opportunity to inform and, I hope, reassure the House about the two Court of Justice of the European Union judgments issued yesterday. The Government are completely opposed to discrimination, including on grounds of gender or religion, or both. It is the right of all women to choose how they dress, and we do not believe that the judgments change that. Exactly the same legal protections apply today as applied before the rulings In both the Achbita case and the Bougnaoui case, the judgment was that there was no direct discrimination, but that there was some discrimination. A rule is directly discriminatory if it treats someone less favourably because of their sex, race, religion or whatever. A rule is indirectly discriminatory if, on the face of it, it treats everyone the same, but some people, because of their race, religion, sex and so on, find it harder to comply than others do. Indirect discrimination may be justifiable if an employer is acting in a proportionate manner to achieve a legitimate aim The judgments confirm the existing long-standing position of EU and domestic law that an employer’s dress code, where it applies to and is applied in the same way to all employees, may be justifiable if the employer can show legitimate and proportionate grounds for it. Various cases show that such an employer needs to be prepared to justify those grounds in front of a court or tribunal if need be. That will remain the case and that is the case with these judgments, which will now revert to the domestic courts I am aware of some concern that the judgments potentially conflict with the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, particularly in the case of Nadia Eweida, the British Airways stewardess banned from wearing a small crucifix but whose case the ECHR upheld. We do not believe that the different judgments are in conflict. Both the CJEU and the ECHR were trying to assess the balance in each case between the religious needs of the employee and the needs of the employer. In Eweida, the assessment favoured the employee; in another ECHR case, and also in the Achbita case, the assessment favoured the employer. We will still take action to ensure that the current legal position is set out. We will be working with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to update guidance for employers on dealing with religion or belief in the workplace. The guidance will be revised to take account of the CJEU judgments, too. We will make it absolutely clear to all concerned that the Equality Act 2010 and the rights of women and religious employees remain unchanged. Like any judgment of the CJEU, for the time being, Achbita and Bougnaoui need to be taken into account by domestic courts and tribunals as they consider future cases. The law is clear and remains unchanged. However, because of our absolute commitment to ensuring that discrimination and prejudice are never encouraged or sanctioned, we will keep the issue under very close review.