December 2009 Archives - Employment Law Advocates

Christmas and New Year Office Closure

01-Dec-2011 / Employment Law Advocates / Comments Off

Our office will be closing for the holiday period at 12.00pm on Friday 23rd December 2011 and will reopen again until 10.00am on Tuesday 3rd January 2012. Advocates will be mostly unavailable but may have intermittent access to email or telephone during this period. If you are an existing client, please contact your Advocate directly by email or telephone. If you are a new client or are seeking advice, please email info@employmentlawadvocates.com or complete the enquiry form on our Contact Us page ...

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Dark Law – The Reason Why Part 2

29-Dec-2009 / James Medhurst / No Comments

In my last dark law post,¬†I discussed the scepticism of tribunals regarding discrimination claims about acts which do not appear to be discriminatory on their face. It might be thought that the situation would have changed since it has become possible for the burden of proof to be reversed but, in fact, this has not really happened at all, for¬†largely the same¬†reasons as those¬†that were outlined in the earlier post. A reluctance to apply the reverse burden of proof strictly is ...

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Territorial jurisdiction

20-Dec-2009 / James Medhurst / 1 Comment

The Court¬†of Appeal dealt with¬†some complicated¬†issues of European law in¬†Duncombe v Department for Children, Schools and Families. It was¬†not a¬†good week for the Department, which also intervened unsuccessfully in JFS. Mr. Duncombe was employed to teach¬†at a European School in Germany but was dismissed when his fixed-term contract came to an end after nine years, contrary to the Fixed-Term Workers Directive.¬†He did not bring a claim in Germany, because he¬†knew that the Department would rely upon¬†state¬†immunity to defeat the claim, ...

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JFS

17-Dec-2009 / James Medhurst / 2 Comments

The judgment of the Supreme Court in this case has been all over the newspapers. I went to see it being handed down yesterday and I was pleased both¬†that the carpet looks much better in real life than in photographs and with the decision itself, in which thirty years of direct discrimination law¬†narrowly avoided being¬†overturned, by a wafer-thin majority of 5 to 4. As noted in this post, it was the authority of James v Eastleigh Borough Council¬†that was at ...

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Compromise agreements

13-Dec-2009 / James Medhurst / No Comments

An employment¬†tribunal does not have the¬†jurisdiction to hear a claim if it has been subject to an agreement¬†which complies with section 203 of the Employment Rights Act, or with a similar provision in another statute. It does have the power to determine whether an agreement¬†properly complies with the terms of the section but it had not been clear¬†if it could rule on the question of whether an agreement is void for some other reason, such as misrepresentation, or whether this ...

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Dark Law – The Reason Why Part 1

11-Dec-2009 / James Medhurst / No Comments

The single most¬†common mistake made by inexperienced advocates and litigants in person in the Employment Tribunal is to assume that it is easy to¬†demonstrate that an negative act by an employer was done on discriminatory grounds. For example,¬†many think that evidence of having been bullied is sufficient even where there is no¬†basis for suggesting that the bullying had anything to do with¬†being a member¬†of one of the protected groups. There is a similar problem in constructive dismissal cases where it ...

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