Mr S Mutangadura v Home Office — 2018

At a preliminary hearing, the respondent applied to strike out, or alternatively seek deposit orders for, the claimant's race and disability discrimination claims arising from recruitment checks for administrative officer and executive officer roles. The claimant's race claim concerned being required to undergo a higher SC security clearance process rather than the CTC process said to apply to other candidates; his disability claim concerned alleged failures to make reasonable adjustments in email communications, with anxiety and depression relied on as the disability.

On the race discrimination claims, the Tribunal held that it could not say the claims had no reasonable prospect or little reasonable prospect of success. It considered that there was an arguable basis on which the burden of proof could shift, including the information available about the claimant's name and British/Zimbabwean nationality, the process for selecting and saving the security clearance level, and the absence of a prompt or detailed explanation for why the higher clearance level had been used. The respondent's strike-out and deposit applications for the race claims were therefore dismissed.

On the disability discrimination claims, the Tribunal held that the pleaded claims were limited to failure to make reasonable adjustments in relation to email communications and delay. It found that, before the claimant's 11 March 2018 email, there were serious difficulties in showing the respondent knew or ought to have known both of the disability and the relevant disadvantage. After that date, the claimant accepted there had been no unreasonable delay in responses. The Tribunal therefore struck out and dismissed the disability discrimination claims.