Is Freemasonry a protected belief for the purposes of employment law? Helen Hall has kindly supplied this guest post on a recent Employment Tribunal case which concluded that it is not.

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In Conway v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] ET 2205162/2013 Mr Conway was not appointed to Operation Resolve, the criminal investigation into the Hillsborough disaster, because he had been a Freemason – and the Freemasons were one of the groups under investigation. As a result, he brought a claim of discrimination on the basis of religion or belief. A major issue before the Employment Tribunal was whether or not Freemasonry was a “religion or belief” protected by the relevant provisions of the Equality Act 2010. Continue reading →