ABSTRACT
Discrimination is an area which has recently rapidly expanded. It has been affected greatly by European Court decisions and an area where a complainant not only has rights under national law but may also have rights under European law in the form of the Equal Treatment Directive (76/207/ EEC). Both discrimination and equal pay, discussed in Chapter 6, are areas where European law has probably had the greatest impact and, to answer questions on these topics, it is necessary to understand the relationship between national law and European law and how far an individual in a Member State can enforce European law in the national courts. For the purposes of ease, most employment law courses deal with the general topic of discrimination rather than separate it out into sex discrimination, racial discrimination and disability discrimination and that approach has been adopted here. Until changes introduced by the Sex Discrimination (Indirect Discrimination and Burden of Proof) Regulations 2001, the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) 1975 and the Race Relations Act (RRA) 1976 were very similar. The 2001 Regulations, however, which implemented the Burden of Proof Directive (97/80/EC), have now changed the burden of proof and the definition of indirect discrimination in sex discrimination claims. The government is not required to implement the same changes to the RRA 1976 until July 2003 by the Race Discrimination Directive (2000/43/EC). This means that until that time, the Acts are now very different in respect of the burden of proof and the definition of indirect discrimination. In addition, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 is different again from the two previous pieces of legislation in that it has no concept of indirect discrimination. It should also be noted that the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999, the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 1999 (as amended) and the proposed Fixed-Term Worker Regulations may all be included in questions in this area.
