In a ruling with implications for hundreds of women civil servants, the High Court has overturned a Labour Court decision on the right to make claims that they were discriminated against in job promotion because they had taken part in job sharing.
The Labour Court had ruled that test cases involving such discrimination could be referred to the director of equality investigations.
The civil servants claimed they were discriminated against on eligibility for promotion because they took part in job-sharing schemes and brought claims before the Labour Court.
In the High Court yesterday, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy ruled the claims could not be brought because of the delay in making them. She found the Labour Court was wrong to rule that the claims could be backdated.
The Minister for Finance had challenged a Labour Court ruling in 2004 that the test claims by 10 civil servants could be referred to the director of equality investigations following a European Court of Justice decision in 1997 on the rights of job sharing workers.
The court had ruled that credit must be given for all job sharing service on the same basis as full time service and a European Council directive was issued to this effect in February 1998.
The directive was to apply to all Civil Service appointments made since October 2nd, 1997, and has so applied.
Trade unions representing 500 civil servants, most of them women, who took part in the job- sharing scheme before the European directive claimed they had been discriminated against on eligibility for promotion and 10 test cases were taken to the Labour Court which ruled there were grounds for referring the cases to the director of equality investigations.
The Labour Court found the applicants believed the system of rating their job-sharing service was unfair, but none considered that it might be unlawful.
The Labour Court said the trade unions had only realised, following the European decision in 1997, that the law was not as they and the Government understood it to be.
The Minister for Finance asked the High Court to set aside the Labour Court ruling on the grounds that the claims had not been lodged within six months from the date of the first act of the alleged discrimination.
In her judgment, Ms Justice Laffoy said that while the claimants' delay in referring their claims to the Labour Court had been explained, a justifiable excuse for the delay had not been established. The state of the knowledge or awareness of the claimants or of the trade unions was irrelevant, the judge added.