Employers may be obliged to “accommodate expression of religion” by their workers if four Christians win a key test case on religious discrimination heard at the European Court of Human Rights today.
Two of the Christians – British Airways check-in clerk Nadia Eweida and NHS hospital nurse Shirley Chaplin – who were refused the legal right to wear a crucifix at work, are asking the Strasbourg court to overturn the UK rulings against them.
They are being represented by government body, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is taking on the coalition by attesting that British judges have interpreted local discrimination laws too narrowly and have done too little to protect freedom of religious expression.
Government lawyers are taking the opposite stance, however, and insist that wearing a cross is not a necessary part of the Christian faith. As a result, they argue that those who are told they cannot wear a cross at work have the right to look for another job.
The Commission has refused to support two other Christians who also argued their case today. Lilian Ladele, a registrar from Islington, was sacked because she would not perform civil partnership ceremonies, while Gary McFarlane, a Relate counsellor, lost his job for refusing to give sexual advice to gay couples.
Both claim that their human rights were breached in the UK.
Changing the law
But Simon Rice-Birchall, a partner at law firm, Eversheds, said that the reason why the cases were significant was because the complainants were ultimately seeking to change UK religious discrimination law.
“Since the claims against individual employers were rejected, the battleground has shifted. It is now the law itself that is being challenged and, by extension, the State,” he said.
As a result, a successful outcome for the complainants would mean legislative change, or at least adjustments to the way in which the law was interpreted.
It would also apply to employers of all stripes and introduce a duty on them, “where reasonable, to accommodate workers’ desires to manifest their religious beliefs” as was the case in the US and Canada, Rice-Birchall explained.
But he added that the Human Rights Court was also being asked to grapple with the “difficult question” of where to draw the line between an employee’s right to act on their religious convictions and employers’ discretion as to how they organised their operations.
“Past cases based on human rights law suggest the claimants will not find it easy to persuade the Court that there was an unjustified infringement of their rights, when the option of resigning was available to them if they felt strongly that they must act on their beliefs rather than in accordance with their employer’s requirements,” Rice Birchall said.
A final ruling is not expected for a couple of months.
