Section 20 Of The Race Relations Act 1976: “Facilities” And “Services”
| Published date | 01 May 1987 |
| Author | John Gardner |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1987.tb02578.x |
| Date | 01 May 1987 |
SECTION
20
OF
THE RACE RELATIONS ACT
1976:
“FACILITIES” AND “SERVICES”
IN
Hasnain Tejani
v.
Superintendent Registrar for the District
of
Peterborough’
the Court
of
Appeal (Croom-Johnson L.J. and Slade
L.J
.)
held that discrimination on grounds
of
past residence abroad
was not direct discrimination’ “on grounds
of
. .
.
national origins”
for the purposes
of
section
3(1)
of
the Race Relations Act 1976.
A
District Registrar therefore did not discriminate unlawfully where,
before issuing a marriage licence, he asked to see the passport
of
any person who had been born or had lived abroad. But the Court
of
Appeal stated
per curium
that there would have been unlawful
discrimination under the Act if, for example, only coloured
immigrants had been required to produce a passport.
In order to justify these dicta, the court had to bring the
functions
of
the Registrar within one
of
the provisions of the Act
which render racial discrimination unlawful. The Court of Appeal
had no doubt that the appropriate provision was section
20.
Croom-Johnson L.J. thought there was
“.
.
.
no question
. .
.
that
[the Registrar] was a person within the meaning
of
section
20,
who
provided facilities
or
services in dealing
. . .
with his duties
.
.
.”
in
relation to applications for marriage licences and certificates.
This seems to be an unobjectionable reflection
of
ordinary usage.
Yet the Court of Appeal’s dicta may not be in conformity with the
existing law: in two significant decisions, sophisticated limitations
have been placed on the meaning
of
section
20.
In this paper
I
hope to show why
I
think these limitations inappropriate and
incoherent.
THE ORDINARY
MEANING
OF
SECTION
20
The Race Relations Act 1976 is “a statute which affects people in
their ordinary, unspecialised lives” and the words are “presumptively
intended in their natural, ordinary and grammatical meaning.”3
Section 20(1) provides that discrimination on racial grounds in
the provision
of
“goods, facilities or services to the public or a
section
of
the public” is unlawful, where such discrimination
consists in a refusal to supply or a refusal to supply
on
like terms.
Section
ZO(2)
provides a list
of
examples of “facilities and services,”
a list which is now established to be non-exha~stive.~
’
The Times,
June
10,
1986.
Under section l(l)(a).
The
question whether there might have been some indirect
discrimination under section
l(l)(b)
was not considered.
’
Race Relafions Board
v.
Applin
[I9751 A.C. 259,
per
Lord Simon
of
Glaisdalc at 288.
Applin
concerned the Race Relations Act 1968, but Lord Simon’s words apply with equal
force to the 1976 Act, and
to
the
Sex
Discrimination Act 1975.
Ibid.,
per Lord Simon
of
Glasdale at 290-291. In
R.
v.
Enfry Clearance Officer
ex
p.
Amin
[1983] 2 A.C.
818
Lord Frascr of Tullybelton treated the examples in section 20(2)
as “helpful” although not exhaustive.
345
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