Equality Act 2010 and Human Rights Legislation in the UK

This report provides an overview of the Equality Act 2010 and its relationship with Human Rights legislation in the UK. It begins with an introduction to the law, followed by an exploration of the Equality Act 2010, detailing its provisions and the nine major legislations it encompasses. The report then discusses Human Rights legislation, including the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 2000, highlighting their functions and impact. Several UK legal cases are analyzed, such as the cases involving cuts in disability benefits, race discrimination in child adoption, and challenging a council's housing list policy, illustrating how both the Equality Act and Human Rights principles are applied. The report concludes by comparing and contrasting the similarities and dissimilarities between the Equality Act 2010 and Human Rights legislation, emphasizing their shared values and legislative requirements, and ultimately underlining their interconnectedness and the importance of a combined approach in policy-making to ensure equality and respect for all individuals. The report draws from various academic sources to support its analysis.

Introduction to law

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................3
Exploring the Equality act 2010 and the Human rights legislation.......................................3
Examples of UK legal cases which includes both Equality Act 2010 as well as Human
rights legislations...................................................................................................................5
Similarity and dissimilarity of the provisions of human right legislation with the Equality
Act 2010.................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The law refers to the rule which is developed by the government and the society in
order to deal with the crime, business, finance, social relationship and is controlled by the
controlling authority. The Equality law 2010 has certain provisions which highlights the
human right legislation as well, which is studied in detail in this report. This report covers the
comparison between the human rights legislations with the Equality Act 2010 with UK
caselaw in terms of similarities and dissimilarities.
MAIN BODY
Exploring the Equality act 2010 and the Human rights legislation
The Equality Act 2010
The new Act of equality came into force in the year October 2010 which covers more
than 116 separate pieces of legislations under only one individual Act. It delivers a
framework which provides assistance in protecting the individual rights along with the
opportunity to all (Wintemute, 2016). This Act provides Britain with a discrimination law a
swell with the purpose to protect the people against the unequal treatment and for endorsing
the fair and the more equal society. There are 9 major legislation which are merged into this
Act are:
 The Equality Act 2006, Part 2
 The Disability Discrimination Act 1995
 The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006
 The Equal Pay Act 1970
 The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007
 The Race Relations Act 1976
 The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
 The Sex Discrimination Act 1975
 The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003
Few of the most notable aspects of the Equality Act 2010 includes: introduction of the
new public sector duty in relation to the socio-economic inequality, prohibition of the
multiple discrimination which is limited to the cases on the two grounds of discrimination
only (Butler, 2016). It also includes the protection against the discrimination which is based
on the criteria of gender such as reassignment to the school students. Developing a unique

public sector responsibility with the aim of promoting equality in the public decision making
and policy and the protection has been further stretched on the ground of sexual alignment,
religion, belief and so forth. Provision for legislation in which the employer is required to
review the pay gap in respect to the gender differences (Moses, 2017). There is also an
extension of the time frame for all the women shortlisted to be used for the purpose of
parliamentary and other general elections until 2030, this shortlist is done on the basis of race
and disability.
Human Rights Legislation
There are different laws for human rights in UK which works on the essential rights
and choice of the people which the people in UK is entitled to (Caygill, 2019). The Human
Rights Act 1998 integrates the rights which are set out in the ECHR 1950. Another law that is
meant for Human Rights is “The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 2000
(CFREU)” which works on bringing together the rights of the people living in the European
Union.
The Human Rights (HR) Act 1998:
This Act states the HR in a list of articles and each of the article is related with the
diverse type of right. This Act has 3 major impact, it integrates the rights which are set out in
the ECHR within the domestic British Law. Therefore, in case the human rights (HR) are
breached, the case can be taken to the British court (Choudhry, 2016). It also requires the all
the public government authorities and institutions such as court, government centres, schools,
hospitals and so forth to carry out the functions in regard to respecting and protecting the HR
(human rights). The parliament works on ensuring that the new laws that are put in place are
compatible to the rights which are set in the ECHR and also the court will understand the law
in a way wherever possible which is compatible with the conventions (ECHR).
The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 2000:
This legislation on HR provides a complete set of the rights which includes civil,
social, political and legal rights along with the economic rights which are based on the
essential rights and freedoms considered under ECHR, the legitimate ethnicities of the
European Union member states, for instance, the longstanding safety of the rights which are
set in the common law and the legitimate law of the United Kingdom and the European
Union member states (CARTABIA, M., 2019). It is also based on the “Council of Europe's

Social Charter (CESC), the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Workers
(CCFSRW), and the other international conventions (IC)”.
There is a difference among Charter and the ECHR as the CFHR of the EU was
created by the EU and is further communicated by the CJEU. In contrast to it, the ECHR was
created by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and is construed by the ECHR (European
Court of Human Rights).
Examples of UK legal cases which includes both Equality Act 2010 as well as Human rights
legislations
Cuts in the disability benefits
Name of the case: TP, AR & SXC v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Under this case, the claimants are TP and AR who received the benefits of the
“Severe Disability Premium and Enhanced Disability Premium” but were later enforced onto
the UC which is known as Universal credit by the authorities. In the UC, the claimants lost
most of the amount of their benefit and were left with just £180 a month. It was found out
that the difference is because of the unequal treatment being made done to the disabled
people those who have migrated to the other local authority zones in comparison to those
people who were migrating within the same area which was considered discriminatory in
nature which indicates the contradiction of Article 14 of the ECHR. The government later
worked on resolving the issue by discontinuing other disabled people from moving to other
areas and also providing reimbursements to those who have already migrated onto UC with
the transitional payment (Legal cases. 2020). But the branch of Work and Pensions planned
to make a payment of £80 per month, instead of 180 pounds per month which the people have
already lost. In the next part, the two claimants and a third claimant SXC stated on the fact of
providing the less rate every month was not lawful as disabled people have been treated
differently who mainly remains in the legacy benefits. Even the high court ruled it as
unlawful. The court of appeal approved with the decision of the high court ruling and thus it
will provide support to thousand of disabled people facing issue of the discriminatory
practices of benefit cuts.
This case initially seemed to be breach of Equality Right but on further analysis, it
includes the human right violation as well.
Race discrimination in the child adoption application

Name of the case: Mander v Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
The Manders are the people who are British born belonging to the Sikh Indian
Heritage were communicated by the respected authority that they are suitable for adopting the
child but then too they cannot apply for the same. The reason for this was that the preference
is given to the white couples who are in the priority list as for adoption only white children
are there and the couple were further directed to adopt the child from India. The couple
complaint about it and when there was no response or positive result, they filed for the legal
action. The County Court ruled the judgement in the favour of the couple stating that no
matter what race, religion or the colour the person is everyone must be treated equally and
should be considered for the option of adoption in the same way like other adaptors do. The
Equality and the Human rights commission also provided support to this case due to the
concerns in respect to the policy applied by the council along with its adoption agency is
subject to the racial discrimination.
Challenging a Council's housing list policy
Name of the case: R (TW) and R (Gullu) v London Borough of Hillingdon
As per the Hillingdon Council’s rules in regards to the housing a person can apply for
the house only when that person has lived there for at least 10 years. The two claimants in
this case is one was a male refugee to whom the permission has been granted by the UK
government for living for 3 years while another one is the Irish traveller who had to stop
travelling because of being unwell. The case was filled in the court of appeal which turned
out to be successful as the policy discriminated against the traveller and the refugee. This
case has provided benefits to 125,000 refugees and 63000 travellers in UK in terms of social
housing rules.
Similarity and dissimilarity of the human right legislation with the Equality Act 2010
Shared Values
The principles that are underpin both the laws are the shared values as their origin is
in the UDHR in the year 1948 which explains that the all human beings are born unrestricted
and are equal in self-respect and rights. The values of these laws’ centres around, for
instance, equality, respect, participation, autonomy, fairness, empowerment and dignity.
Legislative requirements

The statutory necessities of the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998
differs even though having the common basis of principles. The Equality Act requires the
relevant authorities to analyse and assess the impact of application of the newly proposed
policy and or the revised policy in order to ensure that the new policy does not distinguish
unlawfully and also considers the impact of policy for advancing the impartiality of the
opportunity between the people of different protected characteristics.
The Human Rights Act, on the other hand, obliges the public authorities in ensuring
that they are breaking the human right principles and laws which are set out by the ECHR
which can be done by carrying out the HR assessment.
When the government authorities are conducting the process of impact assessment in
regard to the necessities of the Equality Act, then in that case they have a chance to address
the rights provided in the Human Rights Act simultaneously as both are firmly interrelated.
This can be reasonable to utilize a combined approach for coordinated thoughtful
opinion around the human rights and equality, keeping away from repetition of efforts and
time while guaranteeing the effective policy making process which improves results for
everybody. Adopting the HR based approach helps sets up least principles for the purpose of
treatment for all whether or not they are included in the given protected characteristic group.
In HR terms everybody is required to be treated with pride and esteem.
CONCLUSION
It can be summarized from the above that the equality Act and the human right
legislation are all interrelated and interconnected. Based on the UK case examples provided it
becomes very clear that things which appeared to be violating in terms of equality where
having some of the aspects of the human rights and has putted a question over it. Both the
laws are based on the same origin which works on bring equality, respect, dignity,
empowerment and so forth. The provision of human rights has a reflection of equality Act
within it which makes both the laws inseparable.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Butler, M., 2016. Equality and anti-discrimination law: the Equality Act 2010 and other anti-
discrimination protections. Spiramus Press Ltd.
CARTABIA, M., 2019. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The
History of the European Union: Constructing Utopia. p.113.
Choudhry, S., 2016. The impact of the European Convention on Human Rights on UK family
law: doctrine, theory and gender (Doctoral dissertation, University of Warwick).
Moses, C., 2017. How Equal is the Equality Act 2010? A Critical Assessment of the Effects
of Harmonisation of Discrimination Law with Regard to Age and Disability
Claims. A Critical Assessment of the Effects of Harmonisation of Discrimination
Law with Regard to Age and Disability Claims.(May 12, 2017). University of
Leicester School of Law Research Paper. (17-01).
Wintemute, R., 2016. Goodbye EU Anti-Discrimination Law? Hello Repeal of the Equality
Act 2010?. King's Law Journal. 27(3). pp.387-397.
Caygill, T., 2019. Legislation under review: An assessment of post-legislative scrutiny
recommendations in the UK parliament. The Journal of Legislative Studies. 25(2).
pp.295-313.
Online
Legal cases. 2020. [Online]. Available Through:<
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/legal-casework/legal-cases>.