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Rearing its ugly head

Victoria von Wachter analyses the complex principles of discrimination

The latest cases involving harassment on grounds of an illegal reason have come to court. The problem here is how loose must the connection be between the insult and the victim, before the thread of causation is broken.

The majority of the discrimination statutes or statutory instruments have provision for the outlawing of discrimination or harassment “on grounds of” whatever the prohibited reason is. The exception is disability which makes it unlawful to harass an individual “for a reason that relates to the disabled person’s disability”.

Harassment is defined as: “Unwanted conduct that has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the victim.” This is subject to a test of reasonableness but taking into account the perception of the victim. The judiciary has been exercised for some time on the extent to which “on grounds of” can be stretched to accommodate the cases that have been

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Birketts—trainee cohort

Birketts—trainee cohort

Firm welcomes new cohort of 29 trainee solicitors for 2025

Keoghs—four appointments

Keoghs—four appointments

Four partner hires expand legal expertise in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Real estate team in Yorkshire welcomes new partner

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