Mr N Kumrai v Mr J Aitken and 2 others — 2020

The claimant, a judge of Indian ethnic origin, brought Equality Act claims arising from the way in which a complaint about his conduct of a Social Entitlement Chamber hearing was investigated by the First and Second Respondents. The tribunal found that the complaint about the hearing was treated as a potential allegation of judicial misconduct, investigated by the Second Respondent under delegated authority, and later accepted and referred onward by the First Respondent.

The tribunal identified procedural defects in the handling of the complaint, including premature conclusions in a letter of 31 July 2015 before the claimant had seen key evidence, use of some material from the claimant's personnel file in a way that was unfair to him, omission of relevant attachments, delay in providing Dr D's statement, failure to show some documents considered by the investigator, and erroneous references to rules 32 and 115. It nevertheless found that the Second Respondent genuinely regarded the complaint as one capable of amounting to judicial misconduct, and that both individual respondents would have acted in the same way in a comparable case involving a judge of a different race.

The tribunal held that the harassment claims failed because the statutory effect was not made out and, in any event, the conduct was not related to race. The direct race discrimination claims failed because the tribunal found no evidential basis for concluding that race materially influenced the conduct of either individual respondent. The victimisation claim failed because the acceptance of the report predated the protected act, and the later decision to uphold and refer the complaint was not influenced by the protected act. The tribunal also held that several scheduled complaints were out of time and that it had no jurisdiction to consider them.