Uk petition to protect asexual people

[Blaiddmelyn]

I'm not a lawyer but I do lecture on a particular specialist bit of professional law. It's entirely unrelated to discrimination (mostly), but I do know how the court system works.

Even with asexuality not explicitly included in the wording, I can't for a second think asexuality would get excluded in a court case, as there's plenty of expert opinion that would say it's an orentation.

And where there's ambiguity in wording, judges have to consider parliament's intentions in framing the law, and in the UK, it would be very, very clear parliament intended cases like asexuality to be covered.

And UK law is subject to the Human Rights Act, both the UK statute, and European law, and discrimination against asexuals would be illegal under that.

Petitions like this are just scaremongering.

Not sure I fully agree actually. Even with a strong case, you've got about 80% chance of success at court - so even if you were right and the wording was not ambiguous/the law is in the claimant's favour, there'd be a 20% chance a court wouldn't agree.Do you appeal it? Depends on a lot of circumstances tbh.

I've considered the wording a few times, and on a plain reading, I've not thought it covered asexuality. I've also seen discussions etc which suggest that including asexuality was considered but not followed through on, and I've read opinions of other lawyers and legal academics who note that it's, at the best, not clear. To fix the ambiguity, it would be better to explicitly cover asexuality in the definition.

In terms of discrimination generally, it's worth noting that the definition is relevant for harassment under the EqA as well - which may well be more relevant if colleagues intimidate you etc due to your being asexual. You would still be protected under normal harassment laws but the good thing about the EqA is uncapped damages in an employment environment (injury to feelings has bands, dismissal usually has caps, for example).

[Blaiddmelyn]

To fix the ambiguity, it would be better to explicitly cover asexuality in the definition.

Agreed, but in the absence of that, could you see a Supreme Court judge saying Parliament's intention was that it should be open season on asexuals, given the legalising gay marriage etc?

But as I say, I'm not a lawyer, or even involved in equality issues. My point was more that while the courts can be obtuse, especially as you go up the hierarchy of courts, they're expected to bring in a certain amount of real world context to how they interpret the wording.

Frankly yes, I could. They can and do get things wrong. Edwards v Chesterfield is a good example of a questionable SC decision that loked at Parliament imtention. They are expected to apply the law as it stands but the law is a tricky beast and there are ... interesting SC judgments out there.'