Mr A Otchie, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2021

This was an open preliminary hearing to decide the correct respondent and whether any of the Claimant's complaints were barred by state immunity. The Claimant had worked as an in-house doctor at the Kuwait Health Office in London from 7 July 2004 to 6 July 2019. The tribunal found that the Claimant's employer was the Government of the State of Kuwait, because that was the express employer named in the written contract, and it ordered that the Kuwait Health Office be removed as a respondent.

The tribunal then considered the Claimant's duties. It found that he worked with confidential medical records and treatment arrangements for Kuwait's royal family and senior government officials, first as an allocated doctor and later in a role issuing letters of guarantee. On that basis, it held that his functions as a member of the Respondent's administrative staff were sufficiently close to the governmental functions of the mission to amount to exercises of sovereign authority, so state immunity applied to the employment-related claims.

The Claimant's proceedings had been presented before IP completion day, so the tribunal said Article 47 of the Charter continued to apply to complaints based on EU law. It held that, for that reason, the race discrimination and harassment complaints could continue only insofar as they were claims for personal injury damages, relying on the state-immunity personal-injury exception and Ogbonna v Republic of Nigeria. The unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal, and failure to give written reasons for dismissal complaints were barred by state immunity. No remedy was awarded at this stage, and the merits of the surviving claims were not decided.