Will the fledgling EHRC help us make sense of equality law? asks Geoffrey Bindman
In 1966 the Race Relations Board (RRB) came into existence with a total staff of seven plus a part-time legal adviser: me. Its main function was to administer a network of voluntary committees trying to conciliate complaints of racial discrimination in public services. It had no enforcement powers. The attorney general, who could seek an injunction to restrain future discrimination if the conciliation process broke down, never exercised that power.
In the intervening years equality law has vastly expanded, both in scope and enforceability. Gender and disability were added to race, each with separate statutes and a separate commission with wide investigatory powers. Individuals were given the right to seek redress in employment tribunals and county courts. European law now requires prohibition of discrimination on other grounds, such as age and sexual orientation. The proliferation of commissions would be intolerable. Hence the creation of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which opened its doors for business on 1 October 2007.
The EHRC replaces, and brings under
