ECJ ruling has major implications for discrimination law

July 22, 2008

A European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling in what has been described as a ‘landmark’ case has created huge implications for the handling of potential discrimination situations in the workplace. Coleman v Attridge Law has been in the news for quite a while now as the dispute was taken to the highest court possible to be resolved. Sharon Coleman worked as a legal secretary for the law firm and was subjected to less favourable treatment as well as harassment because she has a disabled son, five years old. In the UK, disability discrimination legislation relates to the individual who works for the company and is disabled, but by taking the case to the ECJ, this opened up a debate as to whether the European Equal Treatment Directive means that employees with association to (i.e. who are related to or are a carer of)
a disabled person can be unlawfully discriminated against. The ECJ found that ‘associative’ discrimination is covered under the Directive and therefore ruled in favour of Coleman.

The UK’s discrimination legislation must comply with the European Equal Treatment Directive, and this means the law in the UK might need to change to reflect the ruling if associative discrimination cannot be interpreted from the existing law. This could mean that in the future employers will need to ensure that all employees with ‘association’ to someone in a group protected by discrimination legislation are not treated less favourably because of this association. In reality, the ruling in this case means that employers need to ensure this with immediate effect rather than wait for the legislation to change, because this high profile case will be used as a benchmark for similar cases. This will bring challenges in terms of monitoring and enforcing the rules within organisations. As usual I would recommend seeking advice from an employment law advisory service or expert when handling this new aspect of the law.

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Posted by hrgirl | Filed Under Employment Law 

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