Equality Legislation and Reflexive Regulation: a Response to the Discrimination Law Review's Consultative Paper

Trade unions, equal pay and the law in the UK

“…Rather they sought to pre-empt legal cases by requiring public sector employers to anticipate and address potential sources of discrimination before cases emerged. McCrudden (2007) refers to this change in approach as one of 'reflexive regulation' where '[T]he trick… is for the legal system to construct a set of procedural stimuli that lead to the targeted subsystem adapting itself' (p.259).…”

British Developments in Non-Discrimination Law: The Equality Act

“…There is, though, some uncertainty about the effectiveness in practice of the duties. Empirical evidence remains rather limited 98 and there have been concerns that organisations are too focused on procedures rather than outcomes. 99 Put more bluntly, public bodies may reduce the equality duty to a box-ticking exercise in bureaucratic compliance.…”

Disability Rights Commission: From Civil Rights to Social Rights

“…42 This approach superseded the earlier models of collective laissez faire that had characterized the 1960s and displaced the expectation of a`command and control' approach which had pervaded the White Papers that preceded their creation. 43 The displacement of command and control was in large measure a realistic response to judicial hostility: the early attempts by the 530 CRE, in particular, to use its formal investigation powers to enforce compliance led to successful judicial review actions against it and to the creation of serious procedural barriers to the future exercise of the chief enforcement powers. Influential judges, such as Lords Hailsham and Denning, went so far as to compare the enforcement powers to those of the Star Chamber or the Spanish Inquisition, something essentially at odds with the proud libertarian traditions of the English common law.…”