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GAZETTE
B O OK
R E V I E W S
APRIL /MAY 1996
Sexual Harassment in the
Workplace, A Practical Guide
for Employers and Employees
By Noel Harvey and Adrian
F. Twomey, published by Oak
Tree Press, paperback 189pp,
£16.95.
Sexual harassment was first
recognised as discrimination by the
Labour Court some ten years ago in
the case of
A Worker -v- A Garage
Proprietor
EE 2/1985 when the Court
stated "freedom from sexual
harassment is a condition of work
which an employee of either sex is
entitled to expect. The court will,
accordingly, treat any denial of that
freedom as discrimination within the
meaning of the Employment Equality
Act, 1977." The Employment Equality
Act does not specifically refer to
sexual harassment, hence there is no
direct statutory provision preventing
such abuses. At the end of 1994 the
Minister for Equality and Law Reform
published a Code of Practice on
measures to protect the dignity of
women and men at work. In effect
this Code of Practice was issued in
accordance with the European
Commission recommendation
and Code of Practice. Specific
statutory prohibition of
sexual harassment in the workplace
is still awaited.
This text on Sexual Harassment in the
Workplace comprises seven chapters
to include wide definitions of sexual
harassment, a summary of sexual
harassment and the law (to include
useful summaries of the case law),
employers' liability, their defences
and claimants' remedies, a
consideration of sexual harassment
policies more particularly as provided
for in the ESB, the conduct of a sexual
harassment investigation, trade unions
and sexual harassment and how to
bring a sexual harassment claim. The
Appendices include a copy of the
Code of Practice and sample "sexual
harassment policies". Whilst it is a
useful book, it was disappointing that
the authors did not consider
defamation as it applies to claimants
of sexual harassment. Frequently
defamation is a major concern of both
the complainant and also the
employer. Also chapters four and five
consider employer policies to combat
sexual harassment and how to
conduct an investigation concerning
allegations of sexual harassment.
This reviewer found the repetition
in these chapters of the provisions
of a disciplinary procedure and
rules for investigation rather irritating.
One might suggest that a lot of this
text could have been condensed
without losing any benefit to
the reader.
A considerable amount of space was
devoted to the case of the
Health
Board
-v-
BC,
unreported, Costello J.
j High Court 19th January 1994. This is
an extremely important case because
it distinguished between what is
commonly perceived as sexual
harassment in the workplace and
employers' liability in respect not
| only of sexual harassment but also of
1
sexual assault in the workplace.
This case held that an employer
cannot be liable should a sexual
assault take place in the workplace.
In effect this judgment apparently
limits the vicarious liability of the
employer in respect of 'sexual
harassment' and the employment
relationship.
All in all this is a useful guide on
this controversial and developing
subject.
Frances Meenan
Reviewing Maastricht: Issues
for the 1996 Intergovernmental
Conference
Edited by Alan Dashwood, Law
Books in Europe, Sweet & Maxwell,
1996, hardback £45.
The Intergovernmental Conference
1996 (IGC) will discuss the future of the
European Union. The agenda for the
IGC will include EC powers and
Member States powers; the Union's
institutional structure, accountability
and transparency ; enlargement of the
Union in the context of Central and
Eastern European countries, as well as
Cyprus and Malta; and external
relations. These themes are considered
in this book.
This volume represents the intellectual
fruits of a series of one-day seminars
organised between January and July
1995 by the Centre for European
Studies at Cambridge.
The tension between different visions of
the future of the European Union -
whether it should become a loose
federation with an executive accountable
in a political sense to the European
Parliament, and through the Parliament
to a Union-wide electorate, or whether
the Union should retain its present
character as "a constitutional order of
States" is evident in the papers and in
the discussions reported in this book.
Professor Alan Dashwood, Cambridge
University, in his conclusions
emphasises that the IGC should not
overlook the significance of the
objective proclaimed by the European
Coal and Steel Community Treaty
(April 1951) to substitute for age-old
rivalries the merging of essential
interests and to create a community of
peoples long divided by bloody
conflicts. We Europeans have made
great strides in achieving those noble
objectives.
Dr. Eamonn G. Hall
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