MicroShaft Blog: Equality from Discrimination

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Equality from Discrimination - But not Us of Course.

Dizzy via the Independent and an article by Dominic Lawson points out that after all the ho-ha going in Parliament about the Catholic Church and Abortion and how no-one could possibly be exempt from Discrimination that the following ARE exempt:-

This is the full text of the Equality Act 2006. Section (52) titled "Public Authorities" says the following

(1) It is unlawful for a public authority exercising a function to do any act which constitutes discrimination.

It then says,

(3) The prohibition in subsection (1) shall not apply to-

(a) the House of Commons,
(b) the House of Lords,
(c) the authorities of either House of Parliament,
(d) the Security Service,
(e) the Secret Intelligence Service,
(f) the Government Communications Headquarters, or
(g) a part of the armed forces of the Crown which is, in accordance with a requirement of the Secretary of State, assisting the Government Communications Headquarters.

Dominic Lawson then goes on to say.

When I inquired about these exemptions I was told by a government official that, at least in respect of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, they were made "on grounds of national security". The official wasn't immediately able to explain why the Houses of Parliament were exempt. The point is, however, that if this law, as Falconer states, "applies to everybody" then "everybody" cannot mean "everybody except us and the spooks". It is also not clear, to me at least, why it is perfectly proper for national security to be used as a reason for special treatment, but outrageous for religious conscience to be put forward as an argument.

So there we are nobody is above the Law apart from Spooks and Westminster of course.

Perhaps this explains why Tony and his cronies don't feel they have done anything wrong in the "Cash for Honours" saga. Maybe they feel all laws only apply to "The Proles".

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