December 2009
Religion and Belief Equality Information
Question and Answer Sheet
On 1 October 2007, the Race and Religious Hatred Act 2006 came
into force. Despite being relatively unpublicised and concerned with
the prevention of so called ‘hate crimes’, employers should not
necessarily allow the Act to slip by unnoticed.
Question
1. What is so important about this
piece of legislation?
2. Do we really need to know
about this?
3. Does this mean we need to
retrain all of our employees?
4. Can an employer be liable for
harassment of an employee by
other employees because of his or
her religion or belief?
Answer
The Act, which amends the Public Order
Act 1986, introduces a new criminal
offence of stirring up racial hatred
against a person on racial or religious
grounds. If found guilty of the offence,
the punishment can include a fine or
even a prison sentence of up to seven
years.
Yes, you do. The act extends the offence
from individuals to businesses if it can be
shown that the hatred has been stirred
up with the consent or connivance of the
director, manager, company secretary or
any person purporting to act in any such
capacity. However, given the nature of
the offence and the obvious social and
political sensitivity that a conviction may
attract, any prosecution under this Act
must be approved by the Attorney
general.
For most employers the answer will be
no. You have been, or should have been,
aware since the Employment Equality
(Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 of
the rights staff have in relation to their
religion or belief. This new offence is just
a further extension of these rights. If
your equal opportunities and antiharassment policies are well-drafted and
well-adhered to by your employees then
you should have very little to worry
about.
An employer will be liable for harassment
by its employees in the course of their
employment even if it was unaware of it
at the time, unless the employer has
taken reasonable steps to prevent the
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December 2009
employees from harassing others. As a
minimum to have a successful and
reasonable defence, an employer must
have a policy in place to deal with
harassment on the grounds of religion
and must be seen to have taken effective
measures to ensure that employees are
aware of and understand the policy. This
is likely to require some training of all
employees.
5. Can an employer and /or its
employees be liable for
harassment on the grounds of
religion or belief where the victim
is mistakenly believed to be of a
particular religion or belief?
Harassment on the grounds of religion or
belief is prohibited, regardless of whether
or not the perception of the perpetrators
that someone is of a particular religion is
correct. The employer will be liable
unless it has a reasonable defence. The
individual employees will also be liable,
whether or not the employer has a
reasonable defence, since they will be
deemed to have knowingly aided the act
of the employer.
6. Can an employer and/or its
employees be liable for
harassment of an employee
because of, for example his or her
partner’s religion or belief?
Yes. Harassment on grounds of religion
or belief can be because of the religion or
belief of someone other than the victim,
for example the victim’s partner; The
employer will be liable unless it has a
reasonable defence. The harassment
may also be race discrimination.
7. Can an employer restrict a job
of a particular religion or belief?
A job can be restricted to candidates of a
particular religion or belief only where
having regard to the nature of the
employment or the context in which it is
carried out, being of the religion or belief
is a genuine and determining
occupational requirement for the job and
it is proportionate to apply that
requirement in the particular case. If the
employer is an organisation with an
ethos based on religion or belief, it will
be enough that being of the particular
religion or belief is a genuine
occupational requirement.
8. Under the law outlawing
discrimination on the grounds of
religion or belief are company
dress codes permissible?
Dress codes are permissible provided
that they do not give rise to unlawful
discrimination. There should be sufficient
flexibility in a dress code to allow
employees to comply with their religious
or belief convictions. Failure to allow
such flexibility could give rise to unlawful
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religious discrimination. For example
Muslim women who may want to cover
their whole body apart from their face,
hands and feet.
A dress code that does not allow mean to
wear ponytails could indirectly
disadvantage Hindu men; many wear a
shika, a small knotted tuft of hair at the
back of the head, as a symbol of their
belief. Dress codes can also give rise to
unlawful sex or race discrimination.
9. Are employers required to
monitor their employees’ religion
or belief?
There is no requirement to collect data
on religion or belief; however, employers
may wish to consider adding religion or
belief to the categories by which they
carry out monitoring. In addition to the
normal benefits of monitoring, gathering
information on the religion or belief of
employees can help employers
understand their employees needs and
help with business planning, e.g. by
being able to anticipate when employees
may wish to take time off for religious
festivals. If employers decide to monitor
they should inform their employees and
job applicants of the reasons for the
monitoring, and advise them that they
are under no obligation to provide the
information and that, if they do, the
information will kept confidential and be
used for only the purposes described.
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