Case 2201533/2019 · Employment Tribunal
Ms R Jones, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2020
- Case reference
- 2201533/2019
- Decision date
- 3 September 2020
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Brown Representation
- Venue
- London Central
Parties
1 namedClaimant
Ms R Jones, Counsel For the
Respondent
- —
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningBy a claim form presented on 30 April 2019, Mr DB Shrestha brought claims of unfair dismissal, failure to pay a redundancy payment, and failure to pay notice pay against the Embassy of Nepal. At this open preliminary hearing on 3 September 2020, the issue was whether the Tribunal had jurisdiction or whether the Respondent was immune under the State Immunity Act 1978.
Employment Judge Brown held that the Respondent had submitted to the Tribunal's jurisdiction when it filed its ET3 response. Although the response referred to diplomatic privileges and immunity, it also advanced substantive defences: it said the claimant had worked under a one-year temporary contract, had not been dismissed, had left for family reasons, and had received all dues and payments. The Tribunal held that the ET3 went beyond a step taken only for the purpose of claiming immunity, so s.2(4)(a) of the 1978 Act did not preserve immunity.
The Tribunal therefore rejected the immunity objection and decided that the Respondent could not rely on ss.4 and 16 of the State Immunity Act 1978 to resist the claim. The claimant's Article 6 and Article 14 ECHR arguments did not need to be determined once the submission-to-jurisdiction point was resolved, and the matter was listed for a final hearing.
Claims and outcomes
3 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | Preliminary hearing only; the Tribunal decided jurisdiction and did not determine the merits of this claim. | Other | — | — |
| Redundancy | Preliminary hearing only; the Tribunal decided jurisdiction and did not determine the merits of this claim. | Other | — | — |
| Breach of contract | Preliminary hearing only; the Tribunal decided jurisdiction and did not determine the merits of this claim. | Other | — | — |
Legal tests applied
6 references- s.2 State Immunity Act 1978
- s.2(4)(a) State Immunity Act 1978
- step in the proceedings
- submission to jurisdiction
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Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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