Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, author of a new report, argues that, while seeming benign, this landmark legislation has reduced us from being equals before the law to 'protected characteristics on legs'.
Agree re. the aggravated offences but as you say, they arise from the PCs. For me the PCs indicate a belief system that translates core tenets of multicultural politics, and its turbocharged offspring, identify politics, into law. And further disseminates, and extends, legal liability across all public, and increasingly private, bodies. This was the original aim of its main architects, the Equal Rights Trust. I think any law that allow such a huge degree of (mis) interpretation, not to mention, intentional mis-use, is simply not fit for purpose.
Thank you Winifred. It's agree society is stratified, I'm not sure I share your assumption that this is necessarily always a bad thing; or something the majority of people feel as oppressive. And meritocracy has certain conditions for it to function reasonably, namely growth and a society whose leaders have confidence and belief in a) a vision or statement of nation and b) being able to provide policies capable of moving towards that vision. The Equality Act is akin to a corrosive survival strategy used by a leadership class to manage people in the absence of above.
To some extent I agree - the PSED, positive action provisions, and some of changes in language - did alter the anti-discrimination framework. But I don't think that the core PCs (which largely remained unchanged) are the problem. It is more that the underlying principles have been mis (or perhaps mal-) interpreted by more activist judges to focus on outcome rather than treatment (e.g. Essop, Coul) - or have been amended further / expanded beyond recognition. That would be relatively easy to rectify from a legal perspective if there was the will to do so, but will not happen under the current government.
I would argue that the bigger issue with the use PCs has been to create "aggravated" criminal offences that treat offences against certain groups as worse than the same offence against a white/male/etc person. Combine that with concepts of "disproportionate representation" and "unconscious bias training" and similar and you have created the environment to which you refer.
Any worthwhile attempt at deconstructing and understanding the flaws of the equality act must be based on a critique of the idea of 'meritocracy' not on the assumption of it as natural or benign. A stratified society, like ours, that continually reproduces itself is not a meritocracy and never has been.
Agree re. the aggravated offences but as you say, they arise from the PCs. For me the PCs indicate a belief system that translates core tenets of multicultural politics, and its turbocharged offspring, identify politics, into law. And further disseminates, and extends, legal liability across all public, and increasingly private, bodies. This was the original aim of its main architects, the Equal Rights Trust. I think any law that allow such a huge degree of (mis) interpretation, not to mention, intentional mis-use, is simply not fit for purpose.
Thank you Winifred. It's agree society is stratified, I'm not sure I share your assumption that this is necessarily always a bad thing; or something the majority of people feel as oppressive. And meritocracy has certain conditions for it to function reasonably, namely growth and a society whose leaders have confidence and belief in a) a vision or statement of nation and b) being able to provide policies capable of moving towards that vision. The Equality Act is akin to a corrosive survival strategy used by a leadership class to manage people in the absence of above.
To some extent I agree - the PSED, positive action provisions, and some of changes in language - did alter the anti-discrimination framework. But I don't think that the core PCs (which largely remained unchanged) are the problem. It is more that the underlying principles have been mis (or perhaps mal-) interpreted by more activist judges to focus on outcome rather than treatment (e.g. Essop, Coul) - or have been amended further / expanded beyond recognition. That would be relatively easy to rectify from a legal perspective if there was the will to do so, but will not happen under the current government.
I would argue that the bigger issue with the use PCs has been to create "aggravated" criminal offences that treat offences against certain groups as worse than the same offence against a white/male/etc person. Combine that with concepts of "disproportionate representation" and "unconscious bias training" and similar and you have created the environment to which you refer.
Any worthwhile attempt at deconstructing and understanding the flaws of the equality act must be based on a critique of the idea of 'meritocracy' not on the assumption of it as natural or benign. A stratified society, like ours, that continually reproduces itself is not a meritocracy and never has been.