The law's going to the dogs

Has anti-discrimination law had any real impact on discrimination asks Peter White

There’s a new kind of nostalgia around, and I’m seeing it increasingly in the complaints about discrimination which people send to me.

There was a classic case the other day, when we were running a story about a guide dog owner being refused a room at two hotels in North Wales. The response was instant, and huge. It was happening all over the place, apparently.

The Guide Dogs Association confirmed that they’d dealt with almost 50 complaints in the past year, And it turns out that this is happening with assistance dogs of all types.

Canine Partners and Hearing Dogs confirmed that they were increasingly worried about the "trend". And here’s the thing; several e-mailers had the view that it had got worse, not better, since the passing of anti-discrimination legislation. So, could this be true; or is it just mis-remembered, rose-coloured spectacles time? Well, for a start, we know that its not just in this one area that we’re seeing an increase in discrimination.

For instance, many of the people who contacted me about the dogs issue, added that even when they were allowed in, they were often shunted off to the quieter, darker areas of dining rooms when they went to eat. To be effective, anti-discrimination law has to be one of two things: either very tough, or very rigorously enforced. In Britain’s case, they are neither. Because we’re dealing with civil law here, it doesn’t create precedent!

This means that each case has to be fought on its merits, regardless of what’s happened in the past, and it’s up to the complainant to bring the case! Most people just don’t have the energy for it; and that encourages the view amongst would-be discriminators, sit tight, and nothing will happen.

The only way round that would be an energetic enforcer; it’s arguable that we’ve never had that, but certainly not, I would argue, since the substitution of a single commission, more interested in process than prosecution, in place of the Disability Rights Commission.

There’s one other problem. Enforcing anti-discrimination by law leads to a body of rules; as far as business is concerned, a body of rules is there to be got round. The idea of providing appropriate, full-hearted, imaginative assistance goes out of the window, and is replaced by "if we do this, have we sufficiently protected our asses".

Anti-discrimination will only be discouraged (it’ll never be eradicated), if laws are tough, and enforced. If not, it gives a licence for the kind of backlash they certainly saw in the States, and which we may now be seeing here!