An Employment Tribunal has found a care home worker to have been fairly dismissed when she refused to get the covid vaccine. The Tribunal accepted that her “Rastafarian beliefs” were genuine but the requirement for her to be vaccinated was a reasonable management instruction of her care home employer and she had no medical authority or clinical basis for refusing to comply with it. The Tribunal considered whether the dismissal breached her right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
To reach an answer, the Tribunal used the reasonableness test under s.98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The Tribunal concluded that it was reasonable for the employer to have concluded that she was merely skeptical of the official advice and that she did not have a reasonable excuse for refusing its instruction to have the vaccine. As such, her privacy argument failed.
Th full judgment can be found following this link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61e68df88fa8f50585ecbafb/Ms_C_Allette_-V-_Scarsdale_Grange_Nursing_Home_Ltd_1803699.2021.pdf