Kristie Higgs has today won her landmark free speech case at the Court of Appeal.
In a seminal judgment for Christian freedom and free speech, the Court of Appeal has reversed a ruling which defended the dismissal of Kristie Higgs from Farmor’s School in Gloucestershire for raising concern on Facebook about extreme sex education and transgender ideology being taught in her son’s Church of England primary school.
The groundbreaking decision, handed down this morning by Lord Justice Underhill, Lord Justice Bean and Lady Justice Falk, re-examines and re-shapes England’s law on religious discrimination.
The dramatic six-year legal battle has been supported by the Christian Legal Centre from the beginning. Mrs Higgs, 48, was represented in court by barrister, Mr Richard O’Dair.
Ruling re-shapes the law on freedom of religion in the workplace
The ruling confirms that the Equality Act protects traditional Christian beliefs on social issues, such as opposition to the ideas of transgenderism and ‘gender-fluidity’ and opposition to same-sex marriage.
The authoritative judgment re-shapes the law on freedom of religion in the workplace. For the first time in employment law, the judgment has effectively established a legal presumption that any dismissal for an expression or manifestation of Christian faith is illegal.
It explained that the burden is on the employer to prove in the Employment Tribunal that any such dismissal can be objectively justified (not just that they believed it was justified) and was prescribed by law, proportionate and otherwise necessary in a democratic society to address a pressing social need.
The Court of Appeal has also ruled that such a dismissal would only be lawful if it was objectively justified as prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society.
‘Disproportionate response’
Mrs Higgs’ employer had argued during the case that its justification for sacking Mrs Higgs was not to do with her Christian beliefs but because of the language she used in the posts.
This argument, however, was rejected by the judges, who said in their ruling that Kristie’s: “dismissal was unquestionably a disproportionate response”, and that “even if the language of the re-posts passes the threshold of objectionability, it is not grossly offensive.”
They added that: “There was no evidence that the reputation of the School had thus far been damaged: its concern was about potential damage in the future (see, again, the final paragraph of the passage in the dismissal letter quoted at para. 22 above). As it also accepted, there was no possibility that, even if readers of the posts associated the Claimant with the School, they would believe that they represented its own views.
“Any reputational damage would only take the form of the fear expressed by the complainant, namely that the Claimant might express at work the homophobic and transphobic attitudes arguably implicit in the language used. I accept that if that belief became widespread it could harm the School’s reputation in the community, as the panel clearly thought. But the risk of widespread circulation was speculative at best. The posts were made on her personal Facebook account, in her maiden name and with no reference to the School. By the time of the hearing, several weeks after the posts were made, only one person was known to have recognised who she was.”
Furthermore they have ruled that: “Even if readers of the posts might fear that the Claimant would let her views influence her work, neither the panel nor the ET believed that she would do so. There was no reason to doubt her assertion that her concern was specifically about the content of sex education in primary schools; that she “wouldn’t bring this into school”; and that she would never treat gay or trans pupils differently (see para. 16 above). There had indeed been no complaints about any aspect of her work for over six years.”
“Taking those reasons together,”, the judges said, “I do not believe that dismissal was even arguably a proportionate sanction for the Claimant’s conduct. It was no doubt unwise of her to re-post material expressed in (to use the ET’s words) florid and provocative language with which she did not agree, and in circumstances where people were liable to realise her connection with the School. But I cannot accept that that can justify her dismissal, and still less so where she was a long-serving employee against whose actual work there was no complaint of any kind.”
The Court therefore overruled the earlier decision of Employment Appeal Tribunal to remit the case for a re-trial, and concluded: “we should ourselves hold that the Claimant’s dismissal constituted unlawful discrimination on the ground of religion and belief”.
‘Ideological censorship illegal’
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “Free speech and religious liberty are not yet extinguished from the English law. The outcome of Kristie’s case sets an important legal precedent for many years to come.
“The Court of Appeal has confirmed, loud and clear, that ideological censorship at workplace is illegal, and any employer who tramples upon their employees’ right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion breaks the law of the land.
“This is a great victory for Kristie, who lost her job and livelihood for doing no more than expressing her dismay at the nonsensical ideas of gender-fluidity being taught to her child at a Church of England primary school.
“This is also a victory for the many others who went before Kristie, such as Victoria Wasteney and, the late Richard Page, who were also dismissed for their Christian beliefs in the years past, and sought justice in vain. Yet, at a stroke of a pen, decades of unfair decisions which denied justice to Christians have now been re-interpreted by the Court of Appeal and explained away as no more than exceptions which prove the rule.
“This decision proves that our work at the Christian Legal Centre in all those cases over all those years has not been in vain. For all those who stood with us through much darker days of our 16-year-old battle for freedom, it is now time to rejoice and give thanks to God.”
Find out more about Kristie Higgs
