An appeals court this morning confirmed an award of €41,000 to a former British High Commission employee.

The award had been given by an Industrial Tribunal in proceedings filed by Jackie Jordan against the High Commission. Ms Jordan had claimed she had been discriminated against when, unlike another employee, she was not given a redundancy payment when her employment was terminated.

The Tribunal heard that Ms Jordan had worked with the High Commission as personal assistant to the deputy High Commissioner from 1996 until her employment was terminated in January 2007.

When her employment ended she was given Lm300 (€699) by the High Commission but found out that a colleague of hers, Nadiene Gatt Muscat, whose employment had also ended, was given Lm15,000 (€34,940).

The Commission told the Tribunal that there was not enough work for Ms Jordan, so her employment was terminated.

Ms Muscat Gatt had been given Lm15,000, equivalent to two years’ wages, because she could not be made redundant on the basis of “last in first out”.

In its award, the Tribunal concluded that Ms Jordan’s employment had not been unjustly terminated. The High Commission had carried out a study so as to restructure the work place and it resulted that there was no work for Ms Jordan.

But it found that Ms Jordan had been discriminated against, because she had not been given the same compensation that was awarded to a fellow employee.

The High Commission was ordered to pay Ms Jordan €41,000 in compensation.

On appeal, the High Commission contended that once the termination of employment had been justified, it ought not to have been made responsible for payment of compensation.

Mr Justice Philip Sciberras declared that freedom from discrimination among employees existed not only in the place of work but also when an employment was terminated.

The legal principle was that the method of computation of compensation was to be the same in the case of all employees who were made redundant.

The Court of Appeal therefore upheld the Tribunal’s decision and dismissed the High Commission’s appeal.

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