The tribunal’s decision was found to have confused unreasonable treatment with discriminatory treatment. ‘It is common ground that an error in law is made by a tribunal if it finds less favourable treatment on racial grounds where there is no evidence or material from which it can properly make such in inference. See North West Thames Regional Health Authority v Noone [1988] ICR 813, [1988] IRLR 530 at p.824 of the former report. Although an employment tribunal is less formal in its procedures than a court of law and is not bound by the rules of evidence, it must be satisfied that the complaint is proved, on the balance of probabilities, by the person who makes it. In the absence of direct evidence on an issue of less favourable treatment on racial grounds, the tribunal may make inferences from other facts which are undisputed or are established by evidence. However, in the absence of adequate material from which inferences can be properly made, a tribunal is not entitled to find a claim proved by making unsupported legal or factual assumptions about disputed questions of less favourable treatment on racial grounds. This is so whether the discrimination is alleged to arise from conscious or subconscious influences operating in the mind of the alleged discriminator.’
Judges:
Mummery LJ, Mantell and Kennedy LJJ
Citations:
Unreported 5 November 1999
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Alexandra Healthcare NHS Trust and Another v Effa EAT 21-Apr-1998
The Trust appealed against a finding of race discrimination. He was a doctor working as a locum. He had been summarily dismissed in breach of the respondent’s own procedures and professional standards.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The tribunal . .
Cited by:
Cited – The Law Society v Kamlesh Bahl EAT 7-Jul-2003
EAT Sex Discrimination – Direct
The complainant had been suspended from her position as Vice President of the Law Society. The Society and its officers appealed findings of sex and race discrimination . .
Cited – Law Society v Bahl CA 30-Jul-2004
The claimant had succeeded before the employment tribunal in her claim of race discrimination by the respondent and senior officers. She now appealed the reversal of that judgment. The claimant asked the tribunal to draw inferences of discrimination . .
Cited – Ugiabe v Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust (Race Discrimination : Direct) EAT 9-May-2013
EAT RACE DISCRIMINATION – Direct
The Claimant’s appeal argued that the Employment Tribunal had failed to follow through the inferences that it had drawn as to the conduct of the Medical Director of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Discrimination, Employment
Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.185536