Gareddu v London Underground Ltd (Religion or Belief Discrimination)

A tribunal may make a limited factual inquiry into whether an asserted religious belief or its asserted manifestation is genuine and made in good faith. The inquiry must not assess the validity of the belief against objective standards, but may determine whether the asserted manifestation is an artifice.

Under Equality Act 2010, section 19, a claimant must establish that a neutral provision, criterion or practice puts both the claimant and persons sharing the religion or belief at a particular disadvantage because of holding or practising it. Where the only asserted manifestation is not genuine, that finding is decisive and the claim cannot establish the required disadvantage.

The claimant, a practising Roman Catholic from Sardinia, had previously been allowed five consecutive weeks of summer leave to visit Sardinia and attend religious festivals with his family. His request for five weeks' leave in 2015 was refused.

He alleged indirect religious discrimination under section 19 of the Equality Act 2010. The Employment Tribunal dismissed the claim, finding that his assertion that his religion required a five-week absence to attend a series of festivals was not made in good faith. He appealed, alleging errors in the approach to indirect discrimination and genuineness, and perversity.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Employment Tribunal was entitled to find that the claimant's specific assertion that he required five weeks' leave, from late July to early September, to attend a series of religious festivals was not genuine and was not made in good faith.

2. The limited inquiry described in Williamson applies where the genuineness of an asserted manifestation is put in issue. A tribunal may determine as a matter of fact whether the assertion is genuine or an artifice. It must not evaluate the validity, seriousness or cogency of a genuine religious belief by objective standards.

3. The Tribunal had not treated religion as needing to be the sole or primary motivation. Nor had it held the claimant's wish to worship with family against him. It permissibly considered the evidence about his changing and incomplete list of festivals, and his family arrangements, to decide whether the asserted five-week requirement was genuine.

4. It was material that the claimant's case had been framed solely as a requirement for approximately five weeks' leave. It was not a case concerning shorter periods of leave or whether attendance at Sardinian festivals could generally be a genuine manifestation of religion.

5. The Tribunal ideally should have addressed the remaining section 19 issues, including justification. However, its finding on genuineness was decisive. The claimant could not show a particular disadvantage flowing from holding or practising the asserted religious belief where the requested five-week absence did not arise from that belief or its manifestation.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: dismissed the claimant's appeal.
• Employment Tribunal: dismissed the indirect religious-discrimination claim in a judgment promulgated on 1 December 2015.