The claimant sought damages after his treatment as a disabled person whilst held in immigration detention centres. The court dismissed his claim on the basis of Amin.
Held: The application of the Amin case was too simplistic. The various services provided at the detention centre were only to some extent purely governmental. A disabled person detained in an immigration detention centre was entitled to claim that he had been discriminated against in the provision of services under section 19. Those services which were not should come under the 1995 Act.
Buxton LJ said: ‘The broad view of what counts in these terms as provision of a service is important because it is important that the disability and other discrimination legislation does apply in circumstances which it is natural to think it should apply. I do not think that it is conceivably right to say now that Parliament intended this very important legislation not to apply in circumstances such as the detention centre with which we are concerned with, detention in police custody or detention in prison. Some of the functions that were performed there are purely governmental, like, as is conceded in this case, the administrative handling of the detainee on his arrival. But once he is there he is as a detainee a member of a section of the public. He is provided with what are in truth services and there is no reason either in the Act or in the authorities to which I have referred to exclude those services from the ambit of the Act’.
Judges:
Waller LJ, Buxton LJ, Smith LJ
Citations:
[2008] EWCA Civ 697, Times 04-Jun-2008, [2008] ICR 1287
Links:
Statutes:
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 19
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Entry Clearance Officer, Bombay, Ex parte Amin HL 1983
The House was asked whether the grant of special vouchers under the special voucher scheme introduced came within section 29 of the 1975 Act. Acts performed pursuant to a government function did not come within the meaning of service. Discrimination . .
Cited – Savjani v Inland Revenue Commissioners CA 1981
The question arose as whether the Inland Revenue were concerned with the provision of services in their activities relating to the adminsitration of the taxation system, so as to bring them within section 20 of the 1976 Act.
Held: They were . .
Cited – Farah v Commissioner of Police for Metropolis CA 9-Oct-1996
Individual officers, but not the police force itself are answerable in a race discrimination claim. The force is not vicariously liable for an individual officer’s acts. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Gill, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Justice Admn 26-Feb-2010
Failure to provide programme discriminated
The claimant prisoner who had a learning disability said that he had been unable to complete the offending behaviour programmes because of his disability, that he had been kept in prison for much longer than he should have been as a consequence, and . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Discrimination, Prisons
Updated: 04 August 2022; Ref: scu.270558