Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Rajesh  Hamal

Egidijus Bijsky

Representatives

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 21 Equal Status Act, 2000

CA-00055742-001

21/03/2023

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 77 of the Employment Equality Act, 1998

CA-00055742-002

21/03/2023

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 86 of the Employment Equality Act, 1998

CA-00055742-003

21/03/2023

The complainant made various allegations against the Respondent who was his work colleague.

The complainant made various allegations against the Respondent who was his work colleague.

The respondent stated that I did not have jurisdiction to hear these complaints as he was neither a service provider nor an employer.

CA-00055742-001:

I must be satisfied of my jurisdiction to investigate this complaint by reference to the relevant legislation and the nature of the complaint.

The Law

Equal Status Acts 2000-2005 (“the Acts”)

The Acts prohibit discrimination in the provision of goods and services on ten protected grounds, namely, gender, marital status, family status, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, membership of the traveller community and in respect of being in receipt of housing assistance (in the context of the provision of accommodation).  There is an onus on a complainant seeking redress under the Acts to establish that they sought to access a service or obtain goods from the respondent that was available to the public generally, and that in so doing they were discriminated on one or more of the protected grounds.

Dismissal of claims

Section 22(1) of the Acts provides as follows:

S 22.—(1) “The Director of the Workplace Relations Commission may dismiss a claim at any stage if of opinion that it has been made in bad faith or is frivolous, vexatious or misconceived or relates to a trivial matter.”

Section 22 of the Acts allows for the filtering of complaints prior to a hearing or at any stage of proceedings. In Nowak v The Data Protection Commissioner [2016] IESC 18 at page 6, the court stated that “[a]ny public decision maker must have the capacity to screen claims and exclude at an early stage those which are plainly misconceived”.

The meaning and scope of the word ‘misconceived’ was considered by the High Court in Keane v The Minister of Justice (1994) 3 IR 347. In this case it was found that a claim is misconceived if it is incorrectly based in law i.e., the claim is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the legislation inter alia.

Findings:

This complaint relates to various allegations made against the respondent who was the complaint’s work colleague. Reading this complaint in as expansive manner as possible, I am satisfied that this complaint does not fall within the remit of the Equal Status Acts.  The complaint is based on a misunderstanding of the Acts.

CA-00055742-002 and CA-00055742-003:

The Act at Section 77A makes provision as follows:

Dismissal of claim.

77A.—(1) The Director General of the Workplace Relations Commission may dismiss a claim at any stage if of opinion that it has been made in bad faith or is frivolous, vexatious or misconceived or relates to a trivial matter.

(2) (a) Not later than 42 days after the Director General of the Workplace Relations Commission] dismisses a claim under this section, the complainant may appeal against the decision to the Labour Court on notice to the Director General of the Workplace Relations Commission] specifying the grounds of the appeal.

(b) On the appeal the Labour Court may affirm or quash the decision.

Findings:

These complaints relate to various allegations made against the respondent who was the complainant’s work colleague. Reading these complaints in as expansive manner as possible, I am satisfied that the complaints do not fall within the remit of the Employment Equality Act.  These complaints are based on a misunderstanding of the Acts.

CA-00055742-001, CA-00055742-002 and CA-00055742-003

I dismiss these complaints for the reasons set out above.