The Supreme Court has ruled that someone making an allegation of discrimination at an employment tribunal must have some evidence to prove any detriment was caused by such acts. It is not enough for someone simply to assert they have been discriminated against.
In what is seen by experts as a reaffirmation of existing law, the ruling will be an important reminder that the burden of proof is essentially on the claimant, and that tribunals would “want to be certain of any link before looking to the employer to explain why it acted as it did”.
The ruling comes as a result of a case that was brought against the Royal Mail by Mr Efobi, who identifies as black African and Nigerian and was a postal worker for the company. Efobi claimed indirect and direct discrimination and harassment on the grounds of race after he was rejected by the company from more than 30 IT and management jobs between 2011 and 2015. He later amended his claim to include victimisation at work as a result of bringing his tribunal claim.
The initial ET judgment upheld the victimisation and harassment claims, but dismissed the discrimination claims on the basis that there was no evidence that the Royal Mail’s actions were linked to his race.
However an appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal succeeded on the grounds the ET had wrongly interpreted section 136(2) of the Equality Act 2010, which manages the burden of proof in discrimination cases, and had made errors of law in assessing the evidence. Royal Mail challenged this judgement at the Court of Appeal which reversed that decision. Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court was then granted on whether a change in the wording of the equality legislation had altered the burden of proof in employment discrimination cases.
The Supreme Court found the change in wording between the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Equality Act 2010, that replaced it, did not amount to a change in the law, and therefore it did not remove the requirement for a claimant to prove that they had been discriminated against.
The court was also asked to look at when a tribunal may draw adverse inferences from the absence of a potential witness – on the basis that none were drawn by the initial ET when Royal Mail did not call as witnesses any of the actual decision makers involved in rejecting Efobi’s applications. However, the Supreme Court found there was nothing in the initial ET’s judgment that suggested it thought it was not allowed to draw any adverse inferences from that fact – it was just not a conclusion that the ET came to.
