Four new employment judges have worked with ATLEU

Four barristers previously instructed by ATLEU have now been appointed as fee paid employment judges. Niran de Silva, Anna Beale, Akua Reindorf and Louise Price have all represented our clients in some of our most influential cases.

Niran de Silva from Littleton Chambers worked on Hounga, the first Supreme Court case on trafficking. The case involved a child trafficked from Nigeria for domestic servitude who was not paid and was physically abused. The Court of Appeal had determined that, because she did not have the right to work in the UK, she had no right to legal redress against the trafficker. Niran helped us overturn that finding at the Supreme Court.

This is important because trafficking survivors have relatively few specific rights in UK law, so they are particularly dependent on rights set out in the Convention. In this case, it meant that our client could recover compensation from her trafficker.The case also made it harder for any employer to avoid liability when they knowingly employ someone illegally.

Anna Beale from Cloisters worked on Ajayi, one of the first High Court cases brought by a survivor of trafficking against their trafficker. Ms Ajayi was a young Nigerian woman trafficked into domestic servitude and Anna was her advocate in two High Court hearings. The Court relied on Hounga to find she must be entitled to compensation from her trafficker under the Convention.

Anna also came up with an innovative argument that overcame the bar on recovering losses which are more than six years old. This is a significant problem for survivors who may have been trafficked for longer than six years and Anna’s argument allowed the client to recover all her losses.

Akua Reindorf also from Cloisters has worked with ATLEU over many years and obtained a finding in the matter of Saifu that mistreating a migrant domestic worker, on the basis that they were not British, could amount to indirect race discrimination. The Supreme Court has since concluded that this is the only way such a complaint could be framed.

This month, Akua has acted in the matter of Puthenveetil, a challenge to the family worker exemption, which stops live-in domestic workers from receiving the national minimum wage. The exemption has proven to be a loophole for slavery, as traffickers rely on the exemption to defend the failure to pay wages. Akua argued that the exemption amounted to unlawful sex discrimination and was contrary to EU legislation requiring equal pay between men and women. Judgment is awaited. .

Louise Price from Doughty Street Chambers represented our client Mrs Ale, a Nepali woman who was trafficked, kept away from her husband and barely paid. The case set out to challenge the recent law change that you can only recover unpaid minimum wage for the last two years. However, Louise did such a good job in convincing the Tribunal that our client’s treatment amounted to race discrimination, that the survivor recovered her lost wages as compensation for race discrimination.

While this was an excellent result for the client, it did mean that we did not get to take the test case. We won on all issues including the tribunal rejecting the respondents' carefully prepared account of immigration applications that were made without our client’s knowledge. This was a strong result on credibility.

Victoria Marks, Director, ATLEU:

‘We are delighted to see that Niran, Anna, Akua and Louise have been appointed as employment judges. Their work on behalf of our clients has been transformative, improving the rights for survivors of trafficking and ensuring that their traffickers are no longer able to avoid justice. We know that they will be excellent in their new roles.’