Claimant was unfairly dismissed and suffered age discrimination when made to retire as a priest as he was sixty eight.

The claimant was employed as a Priest from June 2013 on consecutive fixed term contracts without breaks and the effective date of termination was 29th February 2024.  The issue surrounded the practice surrounding Dakshina which is a voluntary donation given.  It was agreed that the practice was that before October 2023 the Dakshina was kept by the priests. There was no process in place about requesting permission relating to same.  The claimant asserts that he and the Head Priest were told to stop taking Dakshina but the Head Priest refused. The claimant stated that he would obey the Head Priest. Considering the doubt it was held that there was no clear instruction about whether they should or should not take Dakshina.   The claimant stated that he stopped taking Dakshina in November or December 2023.  The respondent states that he never stopped taking Dakshina. 
The respondent argued that it constituted gross misconduct as the claimant did not followed clear instructions.  The claimant stated that he did stop and that there was no clear instruction.  However, the letter sent to the claimant stated that he “had to retire from his services from the Temple as he has completed sixty eight years of age.”  The claimant brought a claim for unfair dismissal and age discrimination. 

The Tribunal firstly found that there had been nothing like a fair process.  It did not follow disciplinary meetings or hearings leading to the dismissal.  The Tribunal accepted that the committee members were volunteers with little to no experience in employment law but they would have the notion of fairness and what a fair process would look like.  As a result, it was held that the respondent had failed to prove that the claimant had committed gross misconduct and the actual reason was unilateral retirement due to his age.  As a result, the dismissal was unfair and it also constituted direct age discrimination.

The factual background in this case is interesting considering the voluntary donations but the actual issue relating to them was insignificant considering that the correspondence with the claimant related to him having to leave due to his age.  There was no process about dismissal or disciplinary and for that reason it was clear that the dismissal was unfair and it was direct age discrimination in making the decision to dismiss.   This should be a useful lesson in relation to not having unilateral decisions relating to retirement unless there is an objective justification for it or a legal basis for retirement at a certain age within a particular industry.

You can read the case in full here.