Introduction
We have designed this page to provide a one stop reference to all the resources and decisions that were made that led to the unanimous approval of the proposals for Discrimination Legislation – July 2020. For the future key dates please go to Key Dates for the Discrimination Legislation progress and phasing Please go to our Frequently Asked Questions on Human Rights and Discrimination for further information.
July 2022
2022 Draft Prevention of Discrimination Ordinance Published
The Prevention of Discrimination Ordinance was sent to the Greffe for the States debate on 28th September 2022. This is the final version of the Ordinance for debate having been reviewed by the Legislation Review Panel. The draft Ordinance was published early on the 20th July 2022 to give everyone plenty of time to review the detailed legislation.
March 2022
G4 Business Groups Respond to Request for Consultation (Discrmination Legislation)
G4 – The Institute of Directors (IOD), Guernsey International Business Association (GIBA), Guernsey’s Chamber of Commerce and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) have jointly responded to a request for feedback on the Anti-Discrimination Legislation proposals.
Our letter, which focusses on the principles of legislation, rather than the details of the ordinance, sent to the Committee for Employment & Social Security can be read
September 2021
Policy Letter – Discrimination Ordinance: Grounds of i) Religion or Belief and ii) Sexual Orientation
The Committee for Employment and Social Security published its policy letter on the grounds of religion or belief and sexual orientation. It had been agreed by the previous States to include both these grounds in phase 1 of the discrimination ordinance, which also includes the grounds of race, disability and carer status. All 5 grounds are due to be covered in the ordinance due to be completed in 2022 as the first phase of the new Discrimination Ordinance.
May 2021
Legislation Changes from the Consultation to the resolutions
There were significant changes to the Discrimination Legislation over its proposal life time.
- The original ‘Strawman’ was drafted (best practice)
- A consultation with key stakeholders
- Draft Policy proposals were drawn up
- The ESS Committee widely consulted on these draft proposals
- The consultation took place with significant feedback
- New significantly amended proposals were drafted March 2020
- The debate on the proposals took place July 2020, a few changes were made following resolutions
- The final proposals were sent to the law officers for drafting
A summary of all the changes from the original draft policy papers to the final policy proposals are shown in the attached table
April 2021
GPEG 2nd letter – Not at any price
GPEG have released a 2nd letter in the Guernsey Press. There are a number of inaccuracies or misleading statements in it that we have highlighted in our most recent blog post.
You can also view the response to their letter in March here and view the timeline of discrimination legislation resources that we built to ensure all the data, resources and reports are in one place here
April 2021
SEND Review Published
The States have issued the Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) review see SEND review. The review, undertaken by National Association for Special Educational Needs (nasen), was commissioned by the by the last Committee for Education Sports and Culture (ESC) but delayed due to COVID. The full report can be found here.
March 2021
Government Work Plan
On 26th March 2021, the States of Deliberation agreed the main priorities for the Plan, which included Phase 1 of the Anti-Discrmination legislation proposals .
Find out more about the Government Work Plan (GWP) on our news blog
February 2021
Training Questionnaire 2021
The States of Guernsey need to understand how best to support all organisations prior to the introduction of the discrimination legislation, which is currently planned for the latter half of 2022. The implementation of the legislation will also require training and guidance documents to be developed. A questionnaire has therefore been developed to provide answers on how organisations want this information provided.Questionnaire (Survey Monkey)
For a copy of the questionnaire in other formats and for more information…
February 2021
Discrimination Legislation Implementation External Stakeholder Group
The first meeting of the Discrimination Legislation Implementation External Stakeholder Group took place on the 25th February 2021. To find out more about this group and who is on it click the link below.
February 2021
Broad summary of the States progress in realising various Human Rights instruments
The Human Rights (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2000, came into full effect in 2006, but, so far, the States has not provided a mechanism to help all citizens to exercise them. Moreover, until recently the States has not had a programme to inform Guernsey residents about their rights. Consequently, people’s general understanding of their rights remains poor.
Fortunately, this situation in improving, with the introduction of the “rights respecting schools” programme in all States’ schools.
February 2021
GPEG Announce Focus Group
GPEG set up a focus group to assess discrimination legislation and asking for parties interested in joining the focus group to contact the GPEG team at info@gpeg.org.gg.
January 2021
Highlight reports
The Highlight reports for the Disability, Equality and Inclusion strategy provide an update on the workstreams of the strategy
December 2020
Formal extension of CRC to Guernsey and Alderney – Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has now been formally extended to Guernsey and Alderney.
The convention is the most widely ratified piece of international human rights legislation in history.
Extending the Convention to Guernsey and Alderney has been a priority action for the States since 2005, with the Children and Young People’s Plan stating signing up to the UNCRC as one of its overarching actions in the 2016-2022 plan. The CYPP also saw all Guernsey and Alderney schools achieve the Rights Respecting Schools Awards through Unicef
October 2020
Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Report on 2020 Election
The general election of 2020 had a number of firsts one of which was the first time independent election observers had been asked to Guernsey. This report is available here was undertaken by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
The report had 12 recommendations including:
September 2020
Jersey Law – Physical Features of Premises Commences
The Discrimination (Disability) (Jersey) Regulations 2018 came into force on the 1st September 2018 with the exception of the provisions of indirect discrimination relating to physical features of premises, which came into force on 1st September 2020. The Regulations amended the Discrimination (Jersey) Law, 2013 to include the protected characteristic of disability.
July 2020
Historic anti-discrimination law passed in Guernsey
Guernsey’s politicians have agreed to an historic anti-discrimination law.
The law defends people being discriminated against for their race, disability, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and anyone who provides care or support for a person with a disability.
The Institute of Directors, Chamber of Commerce, international Business Association, Confederation of Guernsey Industry and the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development released a joint statement about the change.
The business groups welcome the Assembly’s decision to approve the proposals for the new discrimination ordinance. We hope to work alongside government and other stakeholders throughout the legislative process to ensure a smooth and successful implementation.
July 2020
Sexual Orientation and Religious belief debate
New grounds of religion / belief and sexual orientation added into Phase 1 of the new discrimination ordinance. A further policy letter will be required in 2021 with the details.
July 2020
ERO watered down to EEOS
July 2020
Policy proposals for multi-ground discrimination legislation
The States resolved as follows concerning Billet d’État No XV dated 6th July, 2020
Including adding sexual orientation and religion into Phase 1 (from Phase 2 of 3 phases)
July 2020
Employment & Discrimination Tribunal
changes to the ERS
June 2020
legislation to protect against racial discrimination
ESS Committee urges deputies to adopt legislation to protect against racial discrimination
May 2020
GDA Myth Busters
Reviews of a number of Myths on discrimination the Jersey law etc
March 2020
Proposals for new discrimination ordinance
The Committee of ESS published proposals for new discrimination legislation which will make it unlawful for employers and service providers to discriminate on the grounds of disability, carer status and race. The Policy Letter outlining these proposals is available here
March 2020
FAQs – Accessibility and the discrimination legislation proposals
FAQs – Accessibility and the discrimination legislation proposals
January 2020
Consultation Findings
Consultation Findings:
Draft Policy Proposals for Discrimination LegislationNovember 2019
Discrimination Legislation proposals to be re-focussed
in light of the feedback received to the public consultation on its draft policy proposals for new discrimination legislation, the Committee has decided to re-focus on the delivery of a reduced set of proposals.
July 2019
Citizen Advice report 2019
Please note that if there is no protection or legislation for discrimination it is rarely reported or seen as the primary issue. (ie might be noted as employment)
July 2019
Equality Conference
Equality Guernsey delivers the 1st Equality Conference, workshops and resources
July 2019
Public Consultation Transcript
Draft Proposals for New Discrimination Legislation: Public Consultation Transcript, Monday 15 July 2019
July 2019
List of Proposed Exceptions
This document lists the proposed exceptions to the rule of non-discrimination
July 2019
Technical Draft Proposals
Although the detail of these draft proposals may seem complicated, at its heart what we are proposing is simple: everyone in Guernsey should be included and have an equal opportunity to participate in the life of our island
July 2019
Draft policy proposals for consultation
the Committee published draft policy proposals for consultation on 9th July 2019
June 2019
Future Guernsey – Priority Policy Area update (June 2019)
January 2019
Why Not Jersey Legislation?
The GDA and experts advising the Committee for Employment and Social Security considered the Jersey legislation in 2019 prior to any wider consultation. The GDA wrote its own response regarding the suitability of the Jersey legislation Evaluation-of-the-discrimination-Jersey-Law_final.pdf (disabilityalliance.org.gg).
January 2019
review of states statutory provisions, policies, procedures,
all States service areas reviewed statutory provisions, policies, procedures, rules and criterion used to determine the provision of goods and services to the public in order to identify any necessary exceptions to the proposed discrimination legislation. This exercise is expected to lead to the identification of various issues which will require legislative or operational changes to be made in order to comply with the forthcoming legislation.
January 2019
Disability Review Board
December 2018
Sex Discrimination Ordinance – Summary of Consultation Findings
As part of the development of new discrimination legislation, the Committee for Employment & Social Security have gathered people’s views regarding the Sex Discrimination (Employment) (Guernsey) Ordinance, 2005 (as amended), Guernsey’s only existing piece of discrimination legislation
November 2018
straw man’ model piece of legislation
Following this agreement, the ESS re-engaged the same academic advisers to produce a ‘straw man’ model piece of legislation outlining which provisions would likely be needed and drawing on what they considered to be best practice in the aforementioned Irish and Australian legislation. The straw man was presented to engaged stakeholders in November 2018. Circulated to stakeholders including businesses, third sector groups – not line
September 2018
The Discrimination (Disability) (Jersey) Regulations 2018
The Discrimination (Disability) (Jersey) Regulations 2018 came into force on the 1st September 2018 with the exception of the provisions of indirect discrimination relating to physical features of premises, which came into force on 1st September 2020. The Regulations amended the Discrimination (Jersey) Law, 2013 to include the protected characteristic of disability.
September 2018
Disability Review Report One
Report for Disability Review Project Board
September 2018
Disability Review Report Two
Report for Disability Review Project Board
June 2018
Amendment to The Policy & Resources Plan
the States of Guernsey unanimously agreed that this programme of work should be expanded to develop policy proposals for legislation to protect people from discrimination on multiple grounds, including disability