How do judges judge racialized economic impact?

Abstract

This article asks how UK judges examine racialized economic impact. It aims to identify the standards that are applied in judicial reasoning and the results that follow in terms of addressing racial discrimination and in particular indirect discrimination which has a disproportionate impact on racialized groups. The main hypothesis is that while, as Arden LJ confirmed in Elias that economic matters are justiciable, and that racial discrimination attracts a high level of judicial scrutiny, curiously, together, when it comes to judging racialized economic impact, the standard of scrutiny wanes. Judges seem to accord an inordinately and inexplicably high level of deference to decision-makers in the economic context. The article thus shows that material concerns in racial discrimination are perhaps treated triflingly within UK equality law but that this appears to be no different, say, for sex discrimination, showing a general neglect of material conditions in equality law broadly.