Mrs J Greenwood v Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust — 2022

This reserved judgment concerned the respondent's application to strike out the claimant's free-standing European Convention on Human Rights claim. The claimant alleged breaches of Articles 3 and 14 arising out of the matters pleaded in her claim form, including allegations of disability-related harassment and direct discrimination. The respondent submitted that the Employment Tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear a freestanding ECHR claim, whether under the Human Rights Act 1998 or otherwise, and the tribunal considered the application under rule 37 after both parties had been given an opportunity to make written representations.

Employment Judge Miller accepted the respondent's jurisdictional objection. The judgment states that the claimant had not identified any statutory provision conferring jurisdiction on the Employment Tribunal to determine a freestanding ECHR or Human Rights Act claim, and it distinguished the cases relied on by the claimant because they were not freestanding HRA claims. The tribunal also noted that any claim under section 7 of the Human Rights Act would in any event be difficult because the respondent was acting as an employer in a contractual relationship, rather than as a public authority acting in that capacity.

The tribunal further held that Article 3 was not engaged. Referring to guidance on torture, inhuman treatment and degrading treatment, it said the allegations in the claim did not come close to conduct amounting to torture, inhuman treatment, or degrading treatment for Convention purposes. It concluded that the claimant had no reasonable prospects of showing both jurisdiction and the level of seriousness required to engage Article 3, whether alone or together with Article 14.

For those reasons, the claimant's freestanding claim that the respondent breached the European Convention on Human Rights was struck out.