Case Number: ADJ-00029006. Workplace Relations Commission

• Docket Number: ADJ-00029006
• Hearing Date: 17 May 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Court: Workplace Relations Commission
• Respondent: Driver licensing authority

ADJUDICATION OFFICER DECISION

Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00029006

Parties:

	Complainant	Respondent
Anonymised Parties	Learner driver permit applicant	Driver licensing authority

Representatives Self -represented McCann Fitzgerald. Ms Shelley Horan, B.L.

Complaint(s):

Act	Complaint/Dispute Reference No.	Date of Receipt
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 21 Equal Status Act, 2000	CA-00036035-001	05/05/2020

Date of Adjudication Hearing: 17/05/2021

Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Maire Mulcahy

Procedure:

In accordance with Section 25 of the Equal Status Act, 2000,following the referral of the complaint to me by the Director General, I inquired into the complaint and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present to me any evidence relevant to the complaint. On this date I conducted a remote hearing in accordance with the Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020 and Statutory Instrument 359/2020 which designates the Workplace Relations Commission as a body empowered to hold remote hearings.

I explained the changes arising from the judgment of the Supreme Court in Zalewski v. Adjudication Officer and WRC, Ireland and the Attorney General [2021] IESC 24 on 6 April 2021. The complainant agreed to proceed in the knowledge that hearings are to be conducted in public, decisions issuing from the WRC will disclose the parties’ identities and sworn evidence may be required.

I gave the parties an opportunity to be heard and to present evidence relevant to the complaint.

Anonymisation of parties’ names.

Section 12 of the Workplace Relations (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2021 amended section 25 of the Equal Status Act 2000 by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (2)

“(2) An investigation under this section shall be held in public unless the Director General of the Workplace Relations Commission, of his or her own motion or upon the application by or on behalf of any party, determines that, due to the existence of special circumstances, the investigation (or part thereof) should be held otherwise than in public”

The complainant at the time of the hearing was an asylum seeker. Section 26 of the International Protection Act 2015 states

“(1) The Minister and the Tribunal and their respective officers shall take all practicable steps to ensure that the identity of applicants is kept confidential.

(2) A person shall not, without the consent of the applicant, publish in a written publication available to the public or broadcast, or cause to be so published or broadcast, information likely to lead members of the public to identify a person as an applicant”.

Section (5) In this section—

“applicant” means a person who is or has been an applicant—

• (a) under this Act.

While the complainant, who was unrepresented at the hearing, was advised of the potential arrangements to publicise the identities of the parties in the decision and made no objection to same at the time of the hearing, I have had regard to his status as a person in need of international protection and the International Protection Act 2015. I decide that his particular status having regard to the purpose of that Act amounts to ‘special circumstances’. Accordingly, I decide that this decision should be anonymised.

Background:

The complainant submitted a complaint that the respondent contravened section 3(a)of the Equal Status Act 2000 which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race as defined in section 3(2)(h) of the Act in refusing to grant him a learner driver permit. The complaint is an asylum seeker, a Pakistani national living in Ireland since 2015 and working as a full-time chef in a restaurant in the midlands. The last act of discrimination occurred on 24/1/2020. He submitted his complaint to the WRC on the 4 September 2020.

Preliminary Issues:

Summary of Respondent’s Case:

The respondent raised three preliminary issues: 1. The Respondent submits that the Respondent named on the complaint referral form is not the correct respondent. 2. The complaint is time barred. 3. The decision of the High Court (Creedon J) in A.B. v Road Safety Authority [2020] IEHC 217 which binds the WRC. 1. Incorrectly named respondent. The incorrectly named respondent, the National Driver Licence Service (“NDLS”) provides a service on behalf of the correct Respondent since September 2013. The correct respondent is the Road Safety Authority. The Respondent to this complaint is incorrectly named and is a registered trademark of the Respondent and, accordingly, does not have legal personality and therefore cannot properly be a party to this or any complaint. Accordingly, the complaint must be dismissed. 2. The complaint is time barred. The respondent points to section 21(6) of the Equal Status Acts which requires that a complaint must be submitted within six months of the date of the occurrence of the prohibited conduct to which the case relates or, as the case may be, the date of its most recent occurrence. The complainant’s complaint form was submitted on the 4 September; the date of the most recent occurrence of alleged discrimination was dated the 24 January 2020. No application by the Complainant to extend the limitation period for “reasonable cause” as provided for in s.21(6)(b) has been made. The Respondent relies on the Labour Court determination, in Cementation Skanska v Carroll (DWT 38/2003 which held that “It is the Court's view that in considering if reasonable cause exists, it is...