Public Law Update

RACE EQUALITY

The celebrated Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, was a significant event in the development of legal rules designed to take account of systemic racial discrimination. One of the legislative responses to Sir William Macpherson’s well-publicised coinage of the term ‘institutional racism’ was the two-tiered duty placed on public authorities to promote race equality.

Statutory duties

The general duty, found in the Race Relations Act 1976 (RRA 1976), s 71(1), is an obligation for all specified public bodies to have due regard to the need to “eliminate unlawful racial discrimination…and to promote equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups”.

The specific duty, placed upon a further category of public authorities specified by the secretary of state, requires such bodies to make procedural arrangements, eg the publication of a race equality scheme detailing the arrangements for assessing and monitoring the likely impact