Employment lawyers are predicting a rise in successful tribunal claims as large parts of the Equality Act 2010 came into force last Friday.
The Act will affect all UK employers, regardless of size, and applies across both public and private sectors. It brings existing discrimination law into a single Act to promote consistency of practice and ease of understanding among employers. It also lowers the “evidential bar” for employees who bring claims agaisnt their employers.
Nick Hoffman, barrister at 7 Bedford Row, says: “The reversal in the burden of proof from the claimant having to establish a prima facie case to the defendant having to disprove any facts suggestive of discrimination will have a dramatic effect on the way in which discrimination cases are understood and heard in the courts. Effectively, the ‘evidential bar’ has been considerably lowered and employers can expect to have to defend more claims.”
The new Act also introduces a ban on pre-employment health questionnaires and gives employees freedom to discuss their salaries and pay packages without fear of sanction from their employer. A new “justification” test is introduced for disability discrimination, replacing the different tests currently used. A pdf version of Spencer Keen’s NLJ guide to the Equality Act, A Framework for Fairness, with revised comparative tables, is available to download at www.newlawjournal.co.uk.
