In person For the v Respondent — 2022

At a preliminary hearing on 12 January 2022 before Employment Judge Bloch QC, the claimant, Mr Munir Ahmed Malik, sought to amend his claim and the respondent applied to strike out the existing claims. The ET1, presented on 4 May 2020, pleaded direct discrimination because of race, sex, disability, religion or belief and age in connection with unsuccessful Ministry of Justice prison-related job applications. The claimant later sought to add 33 further applications to the six already pleaded, taking the total to 39.

The tribunal refused the amendment under Selkent. It held that the proposed additions were substantial, that most were outside the three-month time limit in s.123 Equality Act 2010, and that the claimant had not given a sufficient explanation for the delay. It also noted that he had not identified, for each application, which protected characteristic was said to have caused the rejection, and accepted the respondent's submission that allowing the amendment would prejudice its ability to investigate stale claims from multiple locations.

The tribunal then struck out the existing claims under rule 37 as having no reasonable prospect of success. It found that the case amounted to speculation that repeated unsuccessful applications must have been discriminatory, without enough material from which a tribunal could conclude that unlawful discrimination had occurred. It rejected any argument that the complaints were conduct extending over a period or that time should be extended just and equitably. The tribunal also noted that application no. 22, the business administrator role rejected after interview on 31 May 2019, was out of time on the respondent's limitation point, and that the March 2020 operational support grade application was undermined by the claimant's own request for extra time to complete the assessment.