ETZ 4(WR) EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4104882/2018 Preliminary Hearing at Edinburgh on December 2018 Employment Judge: M A Macleod (sitting alone) Michael Steiner v Heriot-Watt University — 2019

This was a preliminary hearing on strike-out, deposit orders and a restricted reporting order. The claimant had originally advanced unfair dismissal and discrimination claims, including disability discrimination, but the disability point had been retracted before the hearing and was not pursued. No evidence was led; the tribunal decided the applications on the papers, the agreed facts and submissions only.

On the religion-or-belief complaint, the tribunal considered the claimant's further particulars, which relied in substance on beliefs about freedom of expression and freedom of association. Applying s.10 of the Equality Act 2010 and Grainger plc v Nicholson, it held that those beliefs were capable of amounting to a protected philosophical belief. The tribunal therefore refused the respondent's strike-out application and also refused the alternative deposit order, while making clear that it was not deciding the merits of the discrimination allegation or the meaning of the social-media posts at this stage.

On unfair dismissal, the tribunal relied on the agreed chronology: the claimant's fixed-term contract as Assistant Professor ran from 3 July 2017 to 23 August 2017; he was later invited to apply for a further post, applied on 4 February 2018, and on 19 February 2018 was told that his application would not be progressed after a student complaint about online material. The tribunal held that he was not employed at that time, that there was no contract of employment to terminate, and that there was no basis for an implied or 'quasi-contract' argument. It struck out the unfair dismissal claim as having no reasonable prospect of success.

The tribunal also refused the claimant's application for a restricted reporting order. It held that the principle of open justice was not displaced by the claimant's concerns, noting that the material in question had been posted publicly under his own name and image. The hearing was then to be listed for the merits of the remaining discrimination claim.