In person For the v Respondent — 2024

The hearing on 13 December 2024 was a preliminary hearing about whether the claimant's indirect sex discrimination claim had no reasonable prospect of success. The claimant alleged that the respondent created two part-time Professor posts for specific individuals, both male solicitors, without a proper open recruitment process and in breach of the university's recruitment policies. The tribunal treated the claimant as a litigant in person and considered the claim as she advanced it, namely that the posts had been created specifically for the two appointed individuals.

Employment Judge Hyams held that the claim fell within the approach in Lord Chancellor v Coker [2002] ICR 321. The judge said the complaint was materially indistinguishable from Coker because the allegation was that each post had been created with one individual in mind, so the effect was not an indirectly discriminatory PCP affecting a pool of applicants but simply the creation of posts for particular people. The judge rejected the submission that the claim should survive strike-out pending disclosure, and concluded that the argument that the posts were created for two named individuals could not amount to indirect discrimination on the pleaded case.

The tribunal therefore struck out the indirect discrimination claim under rule 37(1)(a) of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013. The judgment expressly records that the claimant's equal pay claim under Chapter 3 of Part 5 of the Equality Act 2010 continued and was not decided at this hearing. No monetary remedy was awarded in this decision.