Updated - Woman awarded €799,168 for gender discrimination

Updated - Adds details - The daughter of a former port worker who was not allowed to take her father's place of work due to her gender has been awarded almost €800,000 in damages by the First Hall of the Civil Court. Victoria Cassar filed her writ in 1993 against the Port Workers Board. She told the court that her father, port worker Carmelo Abela had retired from work in August 1992. The filling of a vacant post among port workers was regulated by the 1996 Port Worker Regulations whcih stipulated that eligibility to fill a vacancy was limited to the eldest son of a port worker. Mrs Cassar said that she was the eldest of her father's three daughters and that the Port Workers Board had not allowed her to fill her father's vacant post on the basis that she was a woman. She had then discovered that her father's brother had applied to be registered as a port worker in her father's place and that the application had been accepted by the Board. Mrs Cassar had then requested the courts to award her damages on the basis that she had suffered a financial loss. In yesterday's judgment Mr Justice Silvio Meli pointed out that another court had delivered a partial...