aThe Human Rights Act (HRA) provides that it will be unlawful for public authorities to act in a way that is incompatible with Convention rights.
A public authority employee will have a direct claim for damages or an injunction if there is an infringement of the HRA.
But an employee in the private sector may also bring a claim if the employer exercises mixed public and private functions (a so-called hybrid body), or in respect of a purely private sector employer, by arguing that another claim (such as discrimination or unfair dismissal) has to be interpreted in the context of and consistent with the Convention.
There are a number of areas where employers could fall foul of the Act:
Disciplinary proceedings
Article 6 guarantees the right to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time before an independent and impartial tribunal in the determination of a dispute concerning a ‘civil right’. However, this does not apply to disciplinary or grievance proceedings, because the right to a fair and public hearing is satisfied by the fact that the employee has access to an employment tribunal, an independent judicial body with full jurisdiction to review the process (see Findlay v UK [1997]).
