Equality, diversity and human rights

New and updated

• Type:

  FAQs

  What is the Human Rights Act 1998?

• Type:

  FAQs

  What are the main tenets of the European Convention on Human Rights?

• Type:

  FAQs

  What are the implications for employers of art.8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence)?

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Hallam and another v Cheltenham Borough Council and others

  In Hallam and another v Cheltenham Borough Council and others [2001] IRLR 312 HL, the House of Lords held that in order for there to be liability for knowingly aiding discrimination under the Race Relations Act 1976, section 33(1) there must be "more than a general attitude of helpfulness and co-operation".

• Date:

  15 March 2001

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Equal pay: No right to full pay during maternity leave

  The principle of equal pay under Community law does not require that women should continue to receive full pay during maternity leave, holds the European Court of Justice in Gillespie and others v Northern Health and Social Services Board and others.

• Date:

  1 March 2001

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Equal pay: Six-month time limit is compatible with Community law

  In Preston and others v Wolverhampton Healthcare NHS Trust and others (No.2) and Fletcher and others v Midland Bank plc (No.2) the House of Lords holds that the six-month limitation period laid down in s.2(4) of the Equal Pay Act 1970 does not breach the principle of equivalence.

• Date:

  1 March 2001

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Evidence of how comparator would be treated

  The EAT has ruled, in Chief Constable of West Yorkshire v Vento, that evidence of the treatment afforded to comparators in similar, even if not the same situations, can be relied upon as evidence of how a hypothetical comparator would have been treated.

• Date:

  1 March 2001

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Refusal of request to work at home

  In Lockwood v Crawley Warren Group Ltd the EAT has ruled that an employer applied a requirement or condition when it turned down a new mother's request to work at home.

• Date:

  15 February 2001

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Sex and race discrimination: Appointment of "special adviser" did not amount to indirect discrimination

  Despite the fact that, in appointing a "special adviser", the Lord Chancellor had applied a requirement that any appointee should be personally known to him, there was no disproportionate impact on gender or racial grounds, notwithstanding the fact that the Lord Chancellor's "area of association" was likely to be "skewed" against women and ethnic minorities, holds the EAT in The Lord Chancellor and another v Coker and Osamor.

• Date:

  1 February 2001

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Race discrimination: "National origins" means more than nationality acquired at birth

  The meaning of "national origins" in the Race Relations Act 1976 is not limited to the concept of nationality in a legal sense, and thus to the citizenship that an individual may acquire at birth, holds the Inner House, Court of Session in BBC Scotland v Souster.