Discuss the extent to which discrimination is prohibited under English and Welsh law (25 marks)

Discuss the extent to which discrimination is prohibited under English and Welsh law (25 marks) Article 14 of the European convention on Human rights protects individuals from discrimination. Traditionally English law has intervened to control discrimination in a very limited way, it is initially applied only to the areas of race and sex and only in relation to discrimination for certain purposes. E.g. they targeted race discrimination after WW2 when we had significant immigration from the commonwealth. Whereas the coverage is much larger today and broadly apply to employment discrimination, housing, education and the provision of services. The English law previously provided no remedy against unjustifiable discrimination, therefore in Applin v Race Relations Board (1975) Lord Simon referred to the "unbridled capacity to discriminate" at common law. This was in line with the traditional civil liberties in Britain and the view that an individual could do anything that the law does not prohibit. Therefore if sexual discrimination were to be tackled legislation would have to be passed. The First but limited attempt to prevent racial discrimination was the Race Relations Act 1965 which was later followed by the Race Relations Act 1968 which had a wider scope and extended this prevention of discrimination in law into further areas. On the other hand in areas such as sex

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  • Word count: 2225
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Law
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