The dangers of categorisation?
by Philip
A husband and wife who both work for Strathclyde police are taking their employer to Tribunal alleging that they have been subjected to a detriment on grounds of religion.
The detriment in question was having their personnel record changed from married to married/civil partnership.The change followed the introduction of civil partnerships.
This change of categorisation was offensive to their Catholicism (or so they say) as it equated marital status between man and woman to civil partnership between two people of the same sex. The couple say that there is no comparison.Lumping their marital status in the same category as a civil partnership caused injury to feeling.
We watch this case with interest as the employer’s defence is that if they separate out the categories the employer would (in effect) be disclosing an employee’s particular sexual orientation, which some employees may want keeping confidential.
Another case demonstrating that many new workplace rights may involve the employer managing a balancing exercise between competing employee rights - in this case the right not to be subjected to a detriment on grounds of sexual orientation ( the need to keep it confidential) and the right not to be subject to a detriment on grounds of religious belief .
The case does beg one question: why the employer (other than its pension scheme) needs to know (and retain) the information on marital status /civil partnership in the first place.
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