Mr Khan, a Muslim, lost his claims for equal pay and unfair dismissal in Reading in September 2008. He subsequently appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), claiming that he had not had a fair trial.

On the third day of his hearing, he had requested that the case be adjourned to allow him to observe Ramadan. The request was refused, Mr Khan left the court and his case was dismissed in his absence. He argued that the court had made an error of law by refusing to give him a fair trial, in contravention of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

His appeal was unsuccessful.

The EAT came to its decision after careful scrutiny of the exact details of the case. Mr Khan had been discovered by his employer accessing pornography and other inappropriate sites on his computer at work, and claims he had made alleging age and race discrimination were struck out because he had failed to provide information that the tribunal required.
He had previous hearings postponed on medical grounds despite the fact that no medical diagnosis had ever been offered, and he had also requested an adjournment because he was not ready which was turned down. Mr Khan had already been granted “specific break times each day for the purposes of prayer” during Ramadan.
The date for the hearing had been set on 29th May, which gave Mr Khan plenty of notice that it would overlap with Ramadan in September. Although Mr Khan had left the hearing on the third day, it was clear that the employment judge had carefully considered his 122-page witness statement in detail.
The EAT determined that the application for adjournment had been given “most anxious consideration”. The original tribunal’s reasoning on the matter was found to be sound, and the EAT could find no grounds on which they should interfere with the discretionary decision.
They noted with particular emphasis the fact that Mr Khan had failed “to take even the most basic steps to avoid a hearing being at a time which coincided with Ramadan”.

Technorati Tags: EAT, Ramadan, Unfair Dismissal