Belief in climate change protected philosophical belief

The employment appeal tribunal (EAT) has upheld an employment tribunal’s decision that an individual's belief in man-made climate change and the existence of a moral duty to live in a way that mitigates or avoids it, was capable of being a "philosophical belief" for the purposes of the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003. 

The respondent employer appealed and argued that limits should be placed on the words’ philosophical belief’, these limits being that the belief should be a ‘settled’ belief, part of a system of beliefs, it should not be a political belief or one based upon political opinions and that it should not be a scientific belief based on conclusions drawn from science and resulting from research or the gathering of information.

Whilst these arguments were partially rejected, the EAT did agree that there should be limits on the definition of ‘Philosophical Belief’ and went on to draw a number of principles from existing case law, particularly cases on Article 9 (Freedom of thought, conscience and religion) and Article 2 (Right to Life) of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. These limits were:

• The belief must be genuinely held.

• It must be a belief, not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available

• It must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour.

• It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance.

• It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not be incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.

The EAT further held that a philosophical belief must nevertheless "have a similar status or cogency to a religious belief" if it is to be covered. However, it need not "allude to a fully-fledged system of thought" - in other words, "it need not amount to an '-ism”. A belief (even a religious belief) need not be shared by others and whilst "support of a political party" would not of itself amount to a philosophical belief, a belief in a political philosophy or doctrine, such as Socialism, Marxism or free-market Capitalism, may well qualify. Finally, a philosophical belief may be based on science as Creationism (which is based on faith) is protected; Darwinism (which is based on science) "must plainly be capable of being a philosophical belief".

Whilst the decision of the EAT has given much needed guidance on the scope of protection under the Religion or Belief Regulations, there are still certain issues which remain to be addressed. For instance, how would an employer deal with an employee whose religious beliefs included the suppression of women and consequently was rude to female members of staff?