Two-Year Qualifying Period for Unfair Dismissals is Biased against Women
Posted by admin on 14 Nov 2011 | Tagged as: Better Business, Health, University Of Legal Matters
Government’s plan of extending the eligibility period for unfair dismissal claims from one to two years will be biased against women cautioned Jonathan Exten-Wright, a partner and employment expert at DLA Piper. Government’s this plan of increasing the eligibility period in case of unfair dismissal claims can be contested in the court for being discriminatory and not giving the desired results, for which it is being introduced.
Jonathan Exten-Wright commented on how figures show that more women than men change jobs and have job related issues due to childcare issues. Extending the eligibility period to two years will have an unbalanced and unfair effect on working female population. He remarked that introducing this amended law would only fuel gender discrimination. Adding further, he cited a case that was made in the Court more than ten years back contesting this same change. The eligibility period for unfair dismissal claims was increased to two years in the 1980s. However, this change was contested in 1999-2000, under the case Seymour Smith v Secretary of State for Employment.
At that time, the case was made by the claimant on the basis that the two-year eligibility period for unfair dismissal claims is unfair towards women. At that time, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) stated that the number of female workers complying with the two-year eligibility period was found to be significantly smaller in comparison to the men who could comply with it. Hence, the basis of the claim that the two-year period was discriminatory against women was confirmed. Moreover, it was not necessary to show that the bias against women would be for a long and unrelenting period, a smaller amount was also enough. The House of Lords finally declared that the two-year eligibility period for unfair dismissals was discriminatory and the claim made was correct. However, the two-year period was decreased to one-year in 1999.
Jonathan Exten-Wright remarked that the government’s present plan to increase the eligibility period could witness another similar type of case to be contested against the government.
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