The
UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
's
Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 amends the
Employment Rights Act 1996The Employment Rights Act 1996 was passed originally by the Conservative government in 1996. It consolidated a number of previous statutes dating from the Contracts of Employment Act 1963...
to provide a framework of legal protection for individuals who disclose information so as to expose malpractice and matters of similar concern. In the
vernacularVernacular is the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to lingua francas, official standards or global languages. It is sometimes applied to nonstandard dialects of a global language...
, it protects
whistleblowersA whistleblower is a person who alleges concealed misconduct on the part of an organization or body of people, usually from within that same organization. This misconduct may be classified in many ways; for example, a violation of a law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest,...
from victimisation and dismissal.
The Act received
Royal AssentThe granting of Royal Assent is the formal method by which a constitutional monarch completes the legislative process of lawmaking by formally assenting to an Act of Parliament. While the power to withhold Royal Assent was once exercised often, it is exceedingly rare in the modern, democratic...
on 2 July 1998 and came into effect a year later in 1999; need for such protection became evident from enquiries into disasters and crimes such as the 1987 capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise, the 1988
Clapham Junction rail crashThe Clapham Junction rail crash was a serious railway accident involving two collisions between three commuter trains at 08:10 on the morning of Monday, 12 December 1988....
, and the 1991
Bank of Credit and Commerce InternationalThe Bank of Credit and Commerce International was a major international bank founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi, a Pakistani financier. The Bank was registered in Luxembourg...
scandal.
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The
UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
's
Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 amends the
Employment Rights Act 1996The Employment Rights Act 1996 was passed originally by the Conservative government in 1996. It consolidated a number of previous statutes dating from the Contracts of Employment Act 1963...
to provide a framework of legal protection for individuals who disclose information so as to expose malpractice and matters of similar concern. In the
vernacularVernacular is the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to lingua francas, official standards or global languages. It is sometimes applied to nonstandard dialects of a global language...
, it protects
whistleblowersA whistleblower is a person who alleges concealed misconduct on the part of an organization or body of people, usually from within that same organization. This misconduct may be classified in many ways; for example, a violation of a law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest,...
from victimisation and dismissal.
The Act received
Royal AssentThe granting of Royal Assent is the formal method by which a constitutional monarch completes the legislative process of lawmaking by formally assenting to an Act of Parliament. While the power to withhold Royal Assent was once exercised often, it is exceedingly rare in the modern, democratic...
on 2 July 1998 and came into effect a year later in 1999; need for such protection became evident from enquiries into disasters and crimes such as the 1987 capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise, the 1988
Clapham Junction rail crashThe Clapham Junction rail crash was a serious railway accident involving two collisions between three commuter trains at 08:10 on the morning of Monday, 12 December 1988....
, and the 1991
Bank of Credit and Commerce InternationalThe Bank of Credit and Commerce International was a major international bank founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi, a Pakistani financier. The Bank was registered in Luxembourg...
scandal. In each, employees could have prevented the occurrence had they felt that they would have received any support in raising allegations.
The scope of the Act extends to the raising of "genuine concerns about crime, civil offences (including negligence, breach of contract, breach of administrative law), miscarriage of justice, danger to health and safety or the environment and the cover up of any of these" and extends to all employees in almost all professions; some, such as the army, are excluded.
Protection in the event of infractions by employers is available through the industrial tribunal system; remedies include unlimited financial compensation and orders requiring companies to retain the employee in his or her job.
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