Equality Law

In its Call for Evidence document, the Government said it wanted “to identify barriers to opportunity and seek expert views on how to overcome these barriers.” This included looking at existing laws and how they’re working in practice, and looking at potential changes to the law.

The Government asked 51 questions about a wide range of equality law issues. We focused on questions about discrimination, socio-economic disadvantage and the Public Sector Equality Duty (a duty placed on all public bodies by the Equality Act to consider the need to eliminate discrimination; advance equality; and foster good relations).

We explained the links between the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act and how the Human Rights Act can and has been used to further equality and provide important legal protections for people across the UK. We recommended ways these protections could be strengthened, including:

Article 14 of the Human Rights Act protects everyone in the UK’s right to freedom from discrimination. This means everyone should have equal access to the other rights protected in the Human Rights Act, like the right to private life, the right to peaceful enjoyment of property and the right to education.

While the Equality Act has a specific list of characteristics that are protected from discrimination, the Human Rights Act is open-ended. This means it can protect people against discrimination based on a combination of different characteristics. For example, in B.S. v Spain, the European Court of Human Rights found B.S. had been discriminated against as “an African woman working as a prostitute”. 

The Equality Act confirms that anybody exercising a public function has a Public Sector Equality Duty. The Equality Act defines “public function” in the same way as the Human Rights Act.

Section 6 of the Human Rights Act places a duty on any body carrying out a public function to act in a way that is compatible with human rights wherever possible. Parliament deliberately chose not to make an exhaustive list of what constitutes a “public function” recognising the varied bodies delivering services. A body does not need to be a traditional public body to have legal duties under the Human Rights Act. This is important as we no longer live in a time where functions we traditionally associate with the State, such as health and care, are always delivered directly by the State.

However, we often find people, even those who are performing public functions, find this confusing and for many of them, BIHR’s workshops and programmes are the first exposure they have had to their duties under the Human Rights Act.

BIHR delivers human rights capacity-building to thousands of individuals, community groups, public body workers and policymakers each year. A lot of time is spent during our programmes explaining these legal duties in practical and understandable terms; in fact, it is the first thing we cover, before even explaining the 16 rights in the Human Rights Act. The duties are essential in understanding how the rights apply in practice, and are what take human rights from being theoretical to enforceable.   

We consistently find that providing this clarity leads to participants both feeling more positive about the Human Rights Act and identifying ways in which the Human Rights Act can be utilised in their work to support people accessing services.

Section 3 of the Human Rights Act places a duty on all those carrying out public functions to interpret other laws compatibly with human rights as far as possible. It is important to emphasise that this duty does not just apply to courts. This applies to frontline workers who are making decisions about how to apply mental health legislation; to local councils who are updating their charging policies; and to government departments that are bringing in new regulations – all areas where socio-economic disadvantage arises. If human rights duties are not considered at the very beginning, this can lead to serious issues down the line.

It is also important to remember that Article 8 in the Human Rights Act, which protects our right to private life, includes the right to be involved in decisions which impact our lives. Accessible and inclusive consultation is therefore an essential part of ensuring decision-makers acting on their equality law duties also meet their legal duties under the Human Rights Act.