Equality, the Legal System and Employment Law

Abstract

The legal system is an important context for equality because it regulates all other social institutions and is located at the intersection of state and civil society. While law helps to legitimate state authority, it also purports to serve civil society by providing a framework that secures public accountability and facilitates transactions between private parties. This chapter examines the potential role of the legal system in promoting equality of condition, in light of the complex and often contradictory functions it fulfils in society. We begin by reviewing some of the ways that the legal doctrines and institutions of liberal democracies currently serve to resist egalitarian change, going on to set out some ways that they could be reformed. We then examine anti-discrimination law as one of the major areas in which the legal system has been used to promote equality of opportunity, and analyse its shortcomings. This analysis forms the basis for exploring some of the ways that legislation could be used to promote equality of condition in the workplace, drawing on and developing some existing legal instruments.