“A BELIEF in man-made climate change and the alleged resulting moral imperatives is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.”

Those were the words of an English High Court judge, Mr Justice Burton, on November 3rd as he ruled that green beliefs deserve the same protection in the workplace as religious convictions. A person's right to believe in anthropogenic climate change, and not be hounded out of his job because of it, is now enshrined in law.

Tim Nicholson

The case on which the judge ruled was that of Tim Nicholson, who used to be “head of sustainability” for a residential-property firm called Grainger. Mr Nicholson was relieved of his duties at Grainger in July 2008 and in March of this year was told by a tribunal that he could pursue an unfair-dismissal case, believing, as he did, that he had been sacked on the grounds of his eco-minded beliefs.

Mr Nicholson claims, for example, that other executives stymied his attempts to devise a carbon-management system for the firm by failing to give him the necessary data. He also accused Rupert Dickinson, the firm's chief executive, of “contempt” for his green views. Mr Dickinson, for example, made an employee fly from London to Ireland to bring him a BlackBerry that he had left behind.

The rules on which Mr Nicholson's case is built, namely the Equality and Employment (Religion or Belief) Regulations, were introduced in 2003 to protect employees from being sacked on the grounds of their religion. They ban “conduct which has the purpose or effect of creating an... offensive environment” for the employee and have since been used in many high-profile employment-tribunal cases. One is that of Lilian Ladele, a former registrar of births, deaths and marriages, who is challenging the tribunal's ruling in support of Islington Council's decision to discipline her for refusing, on the grounds of her Christian beliefs, to register civil partnerships between homosexuals. Other plaintiffs have used the rules to challenge decisions to sack them for such things as wearing a cross on a necklace, in breach of uniform rules banning jewellery.

At an earlier hearing on October 7th, Mr Justice Burton had asserted that “if a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based on science as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection”. He provided a five-pronged test to shore up the ruling: the belief must be genuinely held; it must be held for a long period of time; it must relate to something of grave importance to humanity; it must reach a certain level of cogency and seriousness; and it must not trample on existing ideas of human rights. By way of example, he said belief in the supremacy of the Jedi knights of “Star Wars” fame would be excluded, but he conceded that allegiance to the doctrines of Marxism or communism might not.

Whether this ruling will lead to outbreaks of unabashed socialism in accounts and Marxism in the mailroom, causing the courts to be jammed with reds, as well as greens and the pious, remains to be seen. This correspondent has always believed in printing on both sides of paper and has been known to put paper printed on just one side back into the office printer, upside down. Many colleagues found this practice confusing or downright annoying. Who, then, has created an offensive environment for whom? The only thing that is clear is that if your correspondent should be shown the door, there is a sweeping legal precedent in his favour.