Discrimination

The broad categories of discrimination include:

Within each of these categories, there are also two types of discrimination as follows:

  • Direct discrimination, which is when a person is treated less favourably on the grounds of a personal characteristic such as their age, a disability they have, their race or religion, or their gender or sexual orientation. For example, if a female employee is sexually harassed by a male manager. It is rare that direct discrimination can be justified on objective grounds.
  • Indirect discrimination occurs where an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice would put people of one sex/race/religion etc at a particular disadvantage compared with persons of a different sex/race/religion etc. For example, if a one of the requirements for a job is that the applicant must be over 6 feet tall, which eliminates most female applicants. However, it is possible to objectively justify such a provision, criterion or practice if it can be shown to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

Your employee has a maximum period of 3 months from the date of the most recent instance of discrimination in order to make a claim in the employment tribunal. This is regardless of any internal grievance or disciplinary procedures that are ongoing.

If you are seeking to put into practice an anti-discrimination policy or if you want to learn more about the laws relating to discrimination, Ashby Cohen can help you. We specialise in employment law cases, and our years of experience as employment lawyers make us uniquely qualified to assist you with any discrimination issues you may have. Please contact us for an initial free consultation.

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