The British Council attempted to exploit its diplomatic immunity to dodge a new mother’s unfair dismissal claim, a tribunal has heard.
Ana-Maria Beldica was working as an HR team manager in Dubai for the taxpayer-funded body, which promotes British culture and education throughout the world, when she was told her job no longer existed less than a month before she was due to come back to work after maternity leave.
Mrs Beldica, who lists her specialist skills online as including HR consulting and diversity and inclusion, attempted to sue her employer in the UAE for discrimination against new mothers.
However, she found that the charity is protected by diplomatic immunity through its close links to the British government.
But she has now won the right to sue it in a domestic employment tribunal after a judge found that the British Council had attempted “to effectively put itself beyond the reach of law” by resisting her bid to find justice in the UK.
The British Council is a diplomatic and overseas development charity with close links to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
On its website it describes itself as “a non-departmental public body spending taxpayers’ money” and which is “formally accountable to parliament”.
Mrs Beldica was employed by the British Council between March 20 2016 and Dec 31 2020 as an HR manager, responsible for providing support to its operations in Jordan, Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
On Aug 8 2020, she started maternity leave, which was due to last until Nov 14 2020.
But on Sep 24 2020, just under a month before she was due to return to work, her line manager informed her that her job no longer existed due to restructuring.
She was told she could apply for a role in the new structure, but was unsuccessful in her bid to secure an alternative job. Mrs Beldica was then notified that her employment would be terminated on Dec 31 2020.
‘Told employment governed by UAE law’
She subsequently made several complaints regarding her dismissal, but was told that her employment was governed by UAE law and she should take her case to the courts there.
But she found that red tape prevented her from doing so, as well as the ability of her employers to claim diplomatic immunity through its close UK governmental links, should she successfully sue them in the UAE.
Mrs Beldica then brought her case to the UK Employment Tribunal, where she found lawyers representing the British Council attempting to argue she had no right to do so because she had not worked for them in Britain and her role had insufficient connection with the UK.
But Employment Judge Pavel Klimov has now given her the right to bring her case, stating: “Immunity does not extinguish liability.”
He said in a previous case brought against the British Council by an employee in the UAE in 2014, the body had successfully argued that it could claim diplomatic immunity from being sued under local law, and was likely to do the same in Mrs Beldica’s case.
The judge said: “In the UAE, the respondent is closely aligned with the British Embassy. The British Embassy represents the respondent as being ‘an integral part of the British Embassy, operating as its cultural and education department and as Diplomatic Mission’.”
Judge Klimov added: “The claimant was effectively prevented by the respondent from making an employment claim under the UAE Labour Law against the respondent in the UAE.
“The claimant would not have been able to bring a claim against the respondent in the UAE even if she had managed to overcome the initial procedural difficulties, because the respondent would have met any such claim with a successful plea of immunity.
“I find that the respondent’s immunity from being sued in the UAE effectively destroys the connection to that system of law, no matter how strong it otherwise would have been.
“Immunity does not extinguish liability.”
Barring a settlement, the case will now go ahead in the UK employment tribunal at a later date.
