Discrimination - New EEC Directives

KEY FACTS your business needs to know about discrimination legislation

In 1999 the European Commission proposed new rules to require all EU Member States to prohibit discrimination in employment on the grounds of

• racial or ethnic origin,
• religion or belief,
• disability,
• age or
• sexual orientation.

These new rules formed the employment law part of a general anti-discrimination package proposed by the European Commission on 25th November 1999 . The resulting directives are the EC Race discrimination Directive 2000/43 adopted on 29th June 2000 and the EC Equal Treatment Framework Directive 2000/78 adopted on 27th November 2000. They added to the well established EC directives which already outlawed sex discrimination

The UK already had rules outlawing racial discrimination and as well as sex discrimination. To that extent, UK law was already largely in compliance with, and ahead of, the new Directives. The UK subsequently (in December 2003) introduced rules outlawing religious discrimination and discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. New rules to outlaw age discrimination are expected by October 2006
As a related matter EC Directive 2002/73/EC (amending the EC the Equal Treatment (employment) Directive 76/207/EEC) requires minor changes to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, implemented with effect from 1st October 2005, a few days before the 5th October 2005 EC deadline.

In a little more detail the two main EC directives which followed the November 1999 initiative were

1. Directive prohibiting discrimination on grounds of racial or ethnic origin, formally adopted on 29th June 2000 as 2000/43/EC. It was published on 19th July 2000 and must be implemented by Member States by 19th July 2003. This new race discrimination directive, in its formative stage, was welcomed by the UK government (see 2000/06/06 - Home Office Press Release 153/2000 "UK Spearheads EU anti racism pledge").
2. Directive establishing a General Framework for Equal Treatment in Employment and Occupation, EC 2000/78, formally adopted at a Council Meeting on 27th November 2000. This had to be implemented by 2nd December 2003, with an extension to 2nd December 2006 possible in respect of the provisions outlawing age and disability discrimination.

In October 2002, with a view to implementing the EC directives noted immediately above, the DTI issued five sets of draft "Equality" or anti-discrimination regulations which, subject to minor amendments, were later formally made as:-

The various 2003 regulations did NOT include regulations to cover age discrimination as this is considered (rightly) to be a particulary complicated topic which merits further consultation. Under the Equal Treatment Framework Directive 2000/78 the Britain has until December 2006 to introduce anti-age discrimination rules so there should be time to ensure that as far as possible consequences and knock-ons which might be overlooked are taken into account (an interesting question which may arise is whether the common practice of linking holiday entitlement in excess of the basic statutory minimum to length of service could become unlawful indirect discrimination under the proposed new age discrimination regulations). A consultation document Equality and Diversity: Age Matters (74 pages) was issued on 2nd July 2003 (a DTI summary of Equality and Diversity: Age Matters 10 pages is also available on the DTI website). The consultation states that the new rules making Age Discrimination unlawful will come into effect on 1st October 2006.

A semi-official European Code of Good Practice on "Ageing in employment", prepared wiith support of the Employment and Social Affairs Directorate of the European Commission, was issued in January 2001 (details from Eurolink Age (tel 020 8765 7717), a London based european non-governmental organisation).

The British government has set up an "Age Advisory Group" to advise on age issues generally and in particular on the new legislation which will be required by end 2006 to implement the EC framework directive 2000/78

In late 2001, the British government published a Consultation Paper "Towards Equality and Diversity", 13th December 2001 was issued by the British government on 13th December 2001 as a preliminary to introducing new legislation implementing the directive. This was followed in 2005 by a DTI consultation paper "Equality and Diversity - updating the Sex Discrimination Act", dealing with the sex discrimination aspects. This was accompanied by draft Employment Equality (Sex Discrimination) Regulations 2005, intended to come into effect on 1st October 2005

Although not yet (last formally checked, March 2002) signed by the UK, the year 2000 Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights put forward by the Council of Europe is also relevant. It proposes that "the enjoyment of any right set forth by law shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status"

Courtesy of Disclaw publishing