David Renton examines how disputes over immigration status affect unlawful deduction of wages claims
The decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Okuoimose v City Facilities [2011] UKEAT/0192/11/DA casts fresh light on the relationship between immigration status and employment law.
It has long been the law that where an employee has no right to work in the UK he cannot succeed in a claim of unfair dismissal. The employer’s defence has been widened recently, so that a dismissal may be fair even where the employer actually, but wrongly, believes that a worker does not have the right to work in the UK (Klusova v London Borough of Hounslow [2007] EWCA Civ 1127, [2007] All ER (D) 105 (Nov)).
The fairness or otherwise of such a dismissal will depend on the particular facts of the case, for example, how much enquiry did the employer make before dismissal? Did the employer give the employee every opportunity to show that its belief was wrong?
Kurumuth
In an important decision of the EAT in Kurumuth v NHS Trust North Middlesex University Hospital [2011] UKEAT/0524/10/CEA which
