Attorney General of the Cayman Islands and another v Shelliann Bush (Cayman Islands)

Section 7 of the Bill of Rights provides procedural protection. It does not create substantive employment rights. Where Labour Act (2021 Revision) excludes charitable organisations, employees of those organisations acquire no statutory right not to be unfairly dismissed. The exclusion is substantive rather than a procedural bar.

Section 16 is not freestanding. A discriminatory measure must fall within the ambit of another protected right. Although employment disputes may engage private-life rights in appropriate cases, an unfair-dismissal scheme designed to regulate the employer–employee relationship has only a tenuous connection with the core values of section 9. It is not a modality of exercising those rights.

The appellant was employed by the Pines, a charitable organisation excluded from the Labour Act (2021 Revision). Her employment ended after she failed to comply with a COVID-19 vaccination requirement. The Department of Labour and Pensions refused to investigate her complaint of unfair dismissal because the Pines was outside the Act's scope.

Walters J in the Grand Court held that the exclusion was a procedural bar infringing section 7 and that it discriminated against the appellant under section 16 read with section 7. The Court of Appeal of the Cayman Islands, in its judgment dated 18 January 2024, allowed the respondents' appeal and rejected the section 16 arguments. The central issues before the Privy Council were whether the appellant had an arguable substantive civil right, and whether the statutory exclusion fell within the ambit of sections 7 or 9.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Board advised His Majesty that the appeal should be dismissed.
2. Section 7 of the Bill of Rights is procedural. It guarantees access to a fair hearing for the determination of substantive rights recognised in domestic law, but does not itself confer substantive rights. The civil limb requires an arguable domestic right, a genuine and serious dispute, and proceedings directly decisive of that right. A tenuous or remote connection is insufficient. The Board applied the reasoning in R (Kehoe) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2006] 1 AC 42, Matthews v Ministry of Defence [2003] 1 AC 1163 and Grzęda v Poland (2022) 53 BHRC 631.
3. The Labour Act (2021 Revision) creates a statutory right not to be unfairly dismissed only for employment relationships within its scope. Section 3(b) excludes charitable organisations. That exclusion prevents the substantive statutory right from arising; it does not merely prevent enforcement of an existing right. The appellant's status as an employee under section 2 could not alter that conclusion. Her separate common-law right to sue for wrongful dismissal was not the right relied upon in this appeal.
4. Unincorporated treaties cannot confer rights or obligations in domestic law. International law may influence the interpretation of ambiguous legislation or the development of the common law, and customary international law may be adopted in appropriate circumstances. It could not, however, supply a universal right to claim unfair dismissal or imply a right inconsistent with the clear legislative choice in section 3(b). Section 7 was therefore not engaged.
5. Section 16 does not create a freestanding prohibition on discrimination. The complaint must be sufficiently connected with a substantive right protected by the Bill of Rights. The section 16 claim read with section 7 consequently failed because the section 7 claim failed.
6. The ambit of section 9 is broad, but a meaningful connection with its core values is required. The court must make a value judgment concerning how seriously and directly the impugned measure affects those values. Employment disputes may engage private-life rights where the reasons for dismissal involve suspect grounds or its consequences are exceptionally serious. That did not determine the present appeal, which concerned the scope of legislation rather than an individual dismissal measure.
7. At that legislative level, the unfair-dismissal provisions were intended to regulate the employer–employee relationship, not to safeguard or promote private-life interests. They were therefore not a modality of exercising section 9 rights and had no more than a tenuous connection with those rights. The section 16 claim read with section 9 failed. The proposed issue whether employment by a charitable organisation was itself a protected status under section 16 was unnecessary to decide.

• Privy Council: Appeal from the Court of Appeal of the Cayman Islands dismissed. The Board advised that the appeal should be dismissed: [2025] UKPC 39.
• Court of Appeal of the Cayman Islands: On 18 January 2024, allowed the respondents' appeal and dismissed the appellant's respondent's notice.
• Grand Court of the Cayman Islands: On 25 April 2023, Walters J held that the Labour Act exclusion infringed section 7 and section 16 read with section 7, but did not infringe sections 9 or 10.