Chaudhry v Brown & Root Ltd [1997] UKEAT 221_97_0112

EAT
Chaudhry v Brown & Root Ltd
[1997] UKEAT 221_97_0112 · 1997-12-01

JUDGE HARGROVE QC :

In this case Mr Chaudhry has had the benefit of the services of Mr Brown under the ELAAS scheme. Mr Brown has argued one point for him, but indicated that he was not going to argue others but that Mr Chaudhry wished to argue those for himself. This tribunal most unusually permitted Mr Chaudhry not only to have his advocate address us, but to address us himself.We have listened carefully to what he has said. We have admitted and looked at a further bundle of papers with brings the number of pages of his application to 37 in all, and we have considered carefully what he has put forward.The background to this matter is that Mr Chaudhry claimed that there had been acts of race discrimination against him by the respondents in relation to his non-employment by them as an engineer. The result of that was that the Industrial Tribunal decided that the matter had to be looked at in relation to jurisdiction because the application was, on the face of it, for a job in Libya. The tribunal looked at the facts. They found that Mr Chaudhry had applied for a post as a soil embankment engineer, and that the employment was to be entirely in Libya throughout the period of the project. It was an extensive project. The tribunal then looked at the various sections of the Race Relations Act 1976 , particularly under s. 8(1) which reads as follows:
"(1) For the purpose of this Part ("the relevant purposes", the employment is to be regarded as being at an establishment in Great Britain unless the employee does his work wholly or mainly outside Great Britain."
The tribunal then directed itself to Deria v General Council of British Shipping [1986] ICR 172 in which the Court of Appeal said that:
"For the purposes of this Part ... employment is to be regarded as being in an establishment in Great Britain unless the employee does or is to do his work wholly or mainly outside Great Britain."
The point taken by Mr Brown was that one had to look at the contract. It is only upon the wording of the contract that one can decide whether the contract is one for employment in this country or not.The tribunal obviously had that fully in mind in making the decision they did.The appellant takes other points. His point is, in the main, that what he was told at interview was that for a period of about a year he would be working in the United Kingdom. Therefore, he says, that there is jurisdiction.What is overlooked by that is the words in the Act "wholly or mainly outside Great Britain". There is no doubt that with a project that was to last between five and ten years, his work would have been, had he got the job, wholly or mainly outside Great Britain.Accordingly, there is no arguable point of law in this case, and it is dismissed.