Other rights

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Other rights

If the discrimination you are suffering from doesn’t seem to be covered by the anti-discrimination laws, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Depending on exactly what is happening to you, the person discriminating against you might be committing a criminal offence. Or they might be interfering with your employment rights, human rights or breaking the law in some other way.

Employment law

If someone is discriminating against you at work in a way that is not covered by the anti-discrimination laws, they could be interfering with other employment rights you have. Your rights are set out in your contract, in your employer’s policies and procedures and by the law. For example, a woman is being bullied by colleagues at work because she is overweight. When she tells her manager, she does nothing to put a stop to it. Feeling so unsupported, she eventually resigns. She gets advice from an employment law expert, who tells her she could make a claim against her employer for constructive dismissal (a claim that her employer treated her so badly, she had no alternative but to resign).

Human rights Older couple new

The Human Rights Act requires public service providers, such as GPs, job centres, social services, local authorities and prisons to respect people’s human rights. Human rights include things like the right to a family life, a fair trial and freedom from torture.

The Human Rights Act also gives you the right not be discriminated against. But this doesn't cover all situations: only those where you are trying to use one of your other human rights.

For example, one human right is the right to respect for private life. This includes the right to take part in local community life, for example, by doing voluntary work. So if a woman is told that she can’t volunteer in a local school because she is transsexual, that is discriminating against her in using her right to respect for her private life.

The Human Rights Act includes its own list of what types of treatment count as discrimination. This includes treatment which is illegal under other laws that are specifically about discrimination (see Anti-discrimination laws). But it also covers other types of discrimination. For example, carers and homeless people have successfully used the Human Rights Act to complain about discrimination when trying to make use of their human rights.

For more information on human rights contact one of the organisations listed under ‘Equality and Human Rights organisations’(see Where to get help).

Criminal law

The person discriminating against you could be committing a criminal offence, whether it’s someone at work, a service provider or someone completely different like a neighbour or a stranger in the street. If someone is violent towards you or you feel physically threatened by them, this amounts to an assault. If they damage your property (by smashing your windows, for example, scratching your car, or daubing graffiti on your property), that’s criminal damage. There is also a criminal offence of harassment. Crimes committed by someone because of their hatred of your sex, transsexual status, race, disability, sexual orientation or religion, are taken very seriously. If you think that the treatment you have suffered amounts to a criminal offence, you should report it to the police. Woman Wrapped Up New

Civil laws

If the person discriminating against you causes you financial loss in some way, you might be able to take them to court to get compensation. Or you might want to take them to court to put a stop to their unwanted behaviour. Again, this is possible whether the person discriminating against you is someone at work, a service provider, neighbour or a complete stranger. For example:

If someone damages your property, this is potentially not only a criminal offence but could also give you a claim for compensation for trespass to property.

If someone is harassing you, you might be able to get a non-harassment order or an injunction (in Scotland, an interdict) from court. These are all formal orders telling someone that they must not behave in a certain way, such as come within a certain distance of you or your home. If that person ignores the order, there will be consequences for them (which differ slightly depending on the type of order you have got).

You can put a stop to discrimination. Take a look at our other guide, ‘You don’t have to put up with it - dealing with discrimination’ for information on what to do next.