EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4103216/2022 Held via Cloud Video Platform (CVP) in Edinburgh on September 2022 Employment Judge: M A Macleod Jwan Abdullah v University of Glasgow — 2022

At the preliminary hearing on 29 September 2022, Employment Judge M A Macleod considered whether the claimant needed permission to amend her ET1 and, if so, whether amendment should be allowed. The original claim of 13 June 2022 ticked pregnancy/maternity and religion or belief, and the tribunal said the narrative in the ET1 was mainly about working-mother and childcare issues. The later document of 19 August 2022 sought to add automatically unfair dismissal, religion and race discrimination, and indirect sex discrimination.

The tribunal held that the proposed automatically unfair dismissal claim was a significant new claim that had to be added by amendment. Permission was refused because the claimant knew she had resigned when she lodged the ET1, had had some legal advice, and had not shown that it was not reasonably practicable to present that claim in time. The judge applied the time-limit approach for such claims and said the resignation-related matters in the amendment would be treated only as background, not as a valid automatic unfair constructive dismissal claim.

By contrast, the tribunal allowed amendment to add the religion and race discrimination claims. It held that these were new claims not meaningfully foreshadowed in the ET1, but that the balance on the Selkent test favoured allowing them at this early stage, subject to further particulars about the individuals involved and the dates of the alleged acts. The judge also held that the indirect sex discrimination allegation was not a new head of claim at all, but a clarification of the existing complaints about flexible working patterns and changing hours, so permission was not required for that aspect.