Is Ethical Veganism a Protected Philosophical Belief?
Alan Kitto
You may have seen in recent news reports that ‘Ethical Veganism’ has been accepted by an Employment Tribunal as being a recognised and therefore protected philosophical belief for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 and as such, ethical vegans can not be treated less favourably by their employer because of their belief.
It is important to note however that this case has been very badly reported by the press and the press sensationalism needs to be caveated with the following:
Judgements made at Employment Tribunals (where this case was heard) do not create legal precedent and therefore are not binding on other Employment Tribunals or employers; the Judgement would need to be upheld by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) for this to be the happen and there is no indication that the employer in this case is minded to appeal this point of law as it was never contested. This matter arose in an Unfair Dismissal claim where the employer maintains that the employee was dismissed for gross misconduct wholly unconnected with their beliefs; the unfair dismissal claim is yet to be decided.
The Judgement was that this employee’s ethical veganism is a qualifying philosophical belief based on the facts of this case and it doesn’t follow that other ethical vegans will have identical beliefs and hence would be guaranteed similar Judgements.
This subject matter though is an important one and could have an impact on business were ethical veganism to be ultimately accepted as a qualifying philosophical belief. Employees could not, for example, be disciplined for refusing to carry out work for their employer that goes against their philosophical belief, providing of course that they could show that they do in fact have that belief.
An example might be a company that provides products or services to pharmaceutical companies engaged in the testing of their products on animals. An ethical vegan may refuse to carry out work on such a project or contract on the basis that in doing so they would be contravening their philosophical belief.
We’ll keep you posted as this case and others develop, but of you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.