Sally Cowen and Declan O’Dempsey  have been appointed by the Lord President to sit as fee-paid Employment Judges in the Scottish Employment Tribunal Service from 15 th January 2018. Sally and Declan will be based in the Edinburgh tribunal, strengthening close links with the Scottish Employment Law community. Declan already sits in the Newcastl...

Sally Cowen analyses the latest research on the treatment of disabled people in the UK The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has published its new report into the state of equality and human rights for disabled people in the UK on 3 April 2017. The title ‘Being Disabled in Britain: a Journey Less Equal’ rather sums up the whole report, wh...

By Sally Cowen Hamnett v Essex County Council [ 2017] EWCA Civ 6   Judgment given 18 th January 2017 Sally Cowen considers this interesting case concerns the apparent conflict between competing provisions of the Equality Act 2010 in the context of duties to disabled people within the context of Traffic Regulations Orders. The essence of this C...

Cloisters: Equality and Human Rights in Practice The age of Trump and “Brexit”: is the balance between gay rights and religious freedom changing? How far should the right to freedom of religion and belief be protected when it conflicts with the rights of other protected groups? This is a fundamental question which has been the subject of polarised ...

In this blog Sally Cowen considers the implications of the recent Tribunal decision on the status of Uber drivers. Uber drivers have been held by the Tribunal to be ‘workers’ under the definition in s.230(3)(b) of the Employment Rights Act 1996. Known as ‘limb (b) workers’ this entitles the drivers to a variety of rights in relation to their hours ...