The government has started consultation on redefining disability discrimination to overcome the destructive judgment in Lewisham v Malcolm. In a sensible move, disability discrimination will borrow the concept of indirect discrimination from other discrimination law. As the consultation document proposes:
[the Bill shall] adopt the concept of indirect discrimination for the purposes of the disability discrimination provisions in the Equality Bill, rather than carry forward to the Equality Bill the existing provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 that apply to disability-related discrimination. Once a prima facie case of indirect discrimination has been made, it will be possible for the person who imposed the provision, criterion or practice to show that it was objectively justified to defeat the claim; and
introduce a requirement that those people and organisations that are under a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people must make any reasonable adjustment that the Equality Bill will require them to make before they can seek to justify indirect discrimination.
Very sensible, and uncontroversial. See the full consultation document here.
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