{"id":1831,"date":"2015-09-11T15:16:21","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T15:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/?p=1831"},"modified":"2015-09-11T15:16:21","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T15:16:21","slug":"bulgarian-electricity-meters-and-their-impact-on-the-law-of-indirect-discrimination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/bulgarian-electricity-meters-and-their-impact-on-the-law-of-indirect-discrimination\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulgarian electricity meters and their impact on the law of indirect discrimination\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span class=\"blue\"><strong>What is the legal development?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has got us all thinking again. In a <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1OiISzm\" target=\"_blank\">recent case<\/a> an electricity supplier in Bulgaria chose to install meters at an inaccessible height (to deter crime) in an area mainly populated by Roma people. The claimant, who lived in the same area but was not of Roma origin herself, complained that she had suffered indirect discrimination as she could not easily access the meter.<\/p>\n<p>Until now, it has been accepted that claimants cannot bring indirect discrimination claims unless they themselves have the protected characteristic. This case will make us think again as the ECJ held in the Claimant\u2019s favour finding that she had suffered a \u2018particular disadvantage\u2019 on the ground of race or ethnic origin.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"blue\"><strong>What does this mean in practice for employers?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>UK discrimination legislation is now at odds with this decision which will no doubt lead to ever more ingenious arguments and opportunities for employees to claim indirect discrimination (based on any protected characteristic, not just race!). However, a good business rationale should justify any indirect discrimination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the legal development? The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has got us all thinking again. In a recent case an electricity supplier in Bulgaria chose to install meters at an inaccessible height (to deter crime) in an area mainly populated by Roma people. The claimant, who lived in the same area but was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/bulgarian-electricity-meters-and-their-impact-on-the-law-of-indirect-discrimination\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bulgarian electricity meters and their impact on the law of indirect discrimination\u2026<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1832,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions\/1832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}