Establishing race discrimination where no claimant is identified
The case examined the circumstances in which a claim of racial discrimination can be established where public statements are made but there is no identifiable complainant.
Facts:
The Belgian Centre for Equal Opportunities and Combating Racism brought a case against the firm Feryn NV which installed doors on garages of houses. One of directors of the firm made a public remark that the firm will not employ “immigrants”. There was no identifiable complainant in the case as no individual had made a complaint about the statement.
Findings of court:
The court found that public statements made by an employer may dissuade certain candidates from submitting their applications, and thus hinder their access to labour market. As a result such a statement was direct racial discrimination.
In terms of the burden of proof, the public statement was sufficient to lead to the presumption that the employer has a recruitment policy which is directly discriminatory and it was then for the employer to prove that there was no discrimination.
Implications:
There does not need to be an identifiable complainant for a claim of direct racial discrimination to be established. Public statements refusing to employ persons of certain racial or ethnic origins will be sufficient to prove racial discrimination.
Please also refer to the case study of Accept C-81/12 in module 5 on sexual orientation discrimination”.
You may access previous seminar papers on this subject matter here.