Two-year service qualification

The House of Lords has recently ruled that the two-year qualification for unfair dismissal claims, which was only finally reduced to one year in June 1999, amounted to prima facie sex discrimination. The law lords have accepted that the statistics revealed that there was "a persistent and constant disparity" in the proportion of women who had been excluded from unfair dismissal rights. Although the court went on to hold that the government had provided an acceptable justification for the service rule, which was that it wanted to expand employment opportunities, the ruling is important. It establishes that it is the pattern of difference, which is more important in establishing discrimination than the size of the difference. The Seymour-Smith case was lodged about six years ago and has been all the way through the UK legal system as well as being heard at the European Court (R v Secretary of State for Employment ex parte Seymour-Smith, The Times Law Reports, 18 February 2000).