Relay Captains beware

[yted]

Just receive this back from the Equalities people:
"Part 3 of the Equality Act 2010 (the Act) imposes obligations on everyone concerned with the provision of services to the public, or to a section of the public, whether in the private, public or voluntary sectors.
It does not matter if services are provided free of charge, such as access to a shopping mall, or in return for payment, for example, a meal in a restaurant. Under the Act, the provision of services to the public includes the provision of goods or facilities.
There are various forms of prohibited conduct which are unlawful under Part 3 of the Act, and these include direct discrimination.
Direct discrimination occurs when a person treats another less favourably than they treat or would treat others because of a protected characteristic.
In most circumstances, direct discrimination requires that the service provider’s treatment of the service user is less favourable than the way the service provider treats, has treated or would treat another service user to whom the protected characteristic does not apply, for example nationality. This other person is referred to as a ‘comparator’.
The Act says that in comparing people for the purpose of direct discrimination there must be no material difference between the circumstances relating to each case.
However, it is not necessary for the circumstances of the two people (that is, the service user and the comparator) to be identical in every way; what matters is that the circumstances which are relevant to the treatment of the service user are the same or nearly the same for the service user and the comparator.
The Act however, does not apply to clubs, associations and charities set up especially for people from a particular ethnic or national group; discrimination on the basis of nationality or ethnic or national origin is not unlawful, but discrimination based on colour is prohibited.
For further information on Part 3, please find attached a link to the Services, Public Functions and Associations Statutory Code of Practice, which is available on the EHRC website at:

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uplo ... escode.pdf

The Helpline would advise that you request further details for this change in policy from British Orienteering, and the justification behind the decision."

I think clubs and their captains have been put in an impossible position by BOF. As I see it, as well as the strong moral considerations, we would be be behaving illegally if we selected a team to represent our club based on the nationality of our members - unless we change the name of the club to Ebor British Orienteering Club!

[NeilC]

How is that fundamentally different from not being allowed to pick men for the women's open team?

[roadrunner]

On the other hand, their website says:

Sports teams can continue to select on the basis of nationality, place of birth or residence if the competitor or team is representing a country, place, area or related association or because of the rules of the competition.

[yted]

Well I'm not a lawyer (and that probably applies to most relay captains which is why it's better to apply an obvious moral argument to treat all members equally!) but there are clear (and obviously sensible) exceptions for single sex activities see 12.26, 12.51, 13.5.

[yted]

The sports team quote above falls I think once people have been accepted into a club - they are then equally entitled to the benefits of membership. All this seems so obviously "right" to me!

[FATBB]

If the rules of the competition state that a competitor must be British to win, how is that immoral? You can still compete if you aren't British, you just can't win the British Championships.

You must hold a British passport to represent Britain, I don't see it as discrimintaion that you also need one to be British Champion in any discipline, relay included.

I don't think the rules are right as they are, my preferred solution would be to have a bof member and no other national championships rule, but all this fuss around bof making relay captains act illegally is in my eyes, very much an over reaction.

[Street]

So are you making this thread because you are expecting to be sued/have criminal proceedings brought against you by members of your own club?

[graeme]

Looks like its all over for age classes too then...

[yted]

It's immoral because a member of a club is being treated unfairly compared to all the other members. The competition is for clubs and the club is British.
I don't expect to be sued because I have no intention of choosing a team based on race or nationality.
What have age classes got to do with it? Due to aging, people speed up and then slow down so discrimination in sport based on age is obviously fair and sensible. Similarly due to having hips designed to allow birth, women on average run at different speeds to men. But nationality has no bearing on orienteering speed.
Isn't all this obvious??

[Oldman]

You're surely not seriously suggesting that it is illegal to hold an event for relay teams where competitors must be British for the team to be eligible. It may not be a good idea or what most members or clubs want, but hardly illegal

[fleetfoot]

"I have no intention of choosing a team based on race or nationality."

So why have you never raised this before? And what have you done in previous years?

What ever the rights or wrongs of the current qualification criteria one thing they haven't changed is that the eligibility of a relay team is based on the eligibility of the individuals in it. The British Relays have always required the individuals to qualify either by Nationality or Residency. Being a member of a British club has never been sufficient and I don't recall any recent prosecutions of any Relay Captains!

[Spookster]

I think clubs and their captains have been put in an impossible position by BOF. As I see it, as well as the strong moral considerations, we would be be behaving illegally if we selected a team to represent our club based on the nationality of our members.

No, you wouldn't be.

The rule as it stands is legal. There have been a number of cases related to this matter and it is clear that it is legal to require the winners of British Championships to be holding British citizenship – several test cases from other sports have been taken to Court of Human Rights and this situation has been supported.

[yted]

I've never been asked to check nationality before so obviously this problem has never arisen. As for legality, please quote me a case where for a competition between clubs that are open to people of all nationalities this has been tested in the courts (though as I said before, it wouldn't matter to me personally anyway as it's wrong even if it's legal to discriminate in this way against some of our members - and they've lived here for a while and competed for us and helped the club in many ways but even if they hadn't they would still deserve equal opportunities).

[Scott]

You don't need an example from case law, as it's perfectly explicit in the statute:

(5) A person who does anything to which subsection (6) applies does not contravene this Act only because of the nationality or place of birth of another or because of the length of time the other has been resident in a particular area or place.
(6) This subsection applies to—
(a) selecting one or more persons to represent a country, place or area or a related association, in a sport or game or other activity of a competitive nature;
(b) doing anything in pursuance of the rules of a competition so far as relating to eligibility to compete in a sport or game or other such activity.

Whatever you think of the current eligibility rules, claiming that club captains could find themselves in legal difficulties is nonsense, and is not the most effective way to go about getting the rules changed.

[JennyJ]

Scott that seems fairly irrelevant as we are not selecting people to represent Britain only a club which they already represent.