The Herald has covered the swinging fortune of litigants involved in maternity rights cases, which continued earlier this year with the judgements of the English Court of Appeal. In the cases of both Heather Crees v Royal London Mutual Assurance Society and Janet Greaves v Kwik Save Stores, the Court reversed previous decisions of the Employment Appeal Tribunal and came out in favour of Mrs Crees and Mrs Greaves.

Both women had been on maternity leave, complied with all the necessary paperwork but then failed to return to work due to ongoing illness. Their employers had relied on the statutory provisions which allow the return to work to be postponed for medical reasons for up to four weeks but on one occasion only.

The Court of Appeal said there was a ''delicate and difficult'' balance to be struck between the protection of female employees and the protection of the employer from uncertainty. But they concluded that to allow the original decisions in favour of the employers to stand would have produced ''absurd and unjust'' results.

An employment specialist in a Glasgow law firm said: ''The critical conclusion reached by the Court depended on a distinction between the right to return and an actual, physical return.

''The Court felt there was nothing in the legislation which said that the rights terminated if actual work was not commenced. What they concluded was that the right to return had been exercised by the two females when they gave the necessary written notices - they did not need to turn up at the gate to complete that exercise.''

Connal added: ''The Court of Appeal made it clear their rulings were only on the particular arguments before them and did not cover cases where individuals had failed to comply with any of the paperwork requirements.''