(1) Mr N. Zulu (2) Mr H. Gue v Ministry of Defence — 2019

This was a preliminary hearing about jurisdiction under s.121 Equality Act 2010 for complaints by two former members of 3 PARA. The Claimants brought complaints of harassment related to race, direct race discrimination and victimisation, relying on colour, nationality and/or national origins. The tribunal was not deciding the merits of those complaints or remedy.

The tribunal held that the service complaints did not have to plead every later tribunal allegation with the precision of a claim form. It found that, apart from specified exceptions, the tribunal complaints were sufficiently linked to the matters raised in the service complaints, namely an alleged environment of racial harassment and alleged failure to deal with race discrimination grievances. It also held that complaints ruled inadmissible in the service complaints process on substantive, rather than procedural, grounds could still proceed in the employment tribunal where directly effective EU law rights were engaged.

The tribunal dismissed for lack of jurisdiction the First and Second Claimants' victimisation complaints, the First Claimant's complaint about an incident in 2009, and the First Claimant's complaint about lack of career progression. The career progression complaint was excluded because the related service complaint had been withdrawn. The remaining complaints were within the tribunal's jurisdiction, subject to time limit issues not determined at this hearing.