Justiciable disability rights and social change: A Northern Ireland case study

Abstract

For many decades disability discrimination legislation in the UK has provided justiciable rights for people with a disability. In Northern Ireland discrimination on the grounds of disability in employment, education, access to goods and services, or property tenancy is prohibited by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA). Disability rights within the Act are domestically justiciable, with complaints being brought for disability discrimination in employment to an Industrial Tribunal (IT) in Northern Ireland. Whilst the current legislation provides rights to individuals, these justiciable rights have been utilised by organisations seeking to bring about social change for disabled people both individually and collectively. This chapter will examine the strategic use of domestically justiciable individual rights by organisations working to secure social change in the area of disability rights in the workplace. In particular it will analyse the differing perspectives, on the utility of justiciable rights in securing social change, of two organisations: Disability Action (DA) and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI). An introduction to the origins and objectives of each organisation will be followed by a detailed look at DA’s involvement in referring and supporting claimants seeking to litigate and how ECNI has engaged in a litigation strategy throughout the 10 years 2001-2011. The chapter will then explore the role played by litigation and how important it has been for ECNI and DA in their pursuit of social change for disabled workers. It will analyse the reasoning behind each of the organisations’ engagement with Industrial Tribunals in Northern Ireland. The empirical data used in this analysis has been drawn from seven case files held by ECNI on completed cases which were examined in detail; interview transcripts from semi-structured interviews with four staff from DA and eight staff from ECNI; DA and ECNI publications. The analysis will benefit from insights drawn from current literature on law and social change.