Legal work in Scotland

image of hammer and gavel on top of a law book

The Legal Team

The legal team in Scotland work to meet our mandate to protect individuals from discrimination and to enforce equality and human rights laws.

We do this through funding strategic equality cases, (and those human rights cases with a discrimination component), by using our enforcement powers and by raising awareness of the law through training events, writing articles and through our Equality Law Bulletin.

The Scottish legal team is pleased to present the third in our series of four webcasts, equality: online. These webcasts are aimed at providing flexible training to practitioners who work with legal issues in their day-to-day work. In this episode Jayne Hardwick, Senior Lawyer from the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Alice Stobart, Advocate from Westwater Advocates, provide an introduction to EU equality legislation, discuss key case law and set out the principles courts follow when applying this legislation

The Commission in Scotland is interested in hearing from solicitors and advocates who are bringing cases that are of interest to the Commission or in which we might intervene. We look for policies or practices which lead to widespread or serious breaches of equality laws or the Human Rights Act. Find out more.

The Commission in Scotland can offer second tier advice to advisors who are dealing with equality or human rights issues. Find out more here.

One of the Commission's roles as a regulator is to use our enforcement powers which allow us to respond to new and emerging issues. Find out more and contact us about issues of concern.

We deliver a programme of equality law training to advisors and practitioners across Scotland. Keep up tp date with our planned training sessions by subscribing to our bulletin or contact us if you would like to ask us to come to speak at your own training event or conference. We have also written articles for the legal press which you can read here.

We have produced Codes of Practice on Employment, Services and Equal Pay. The Codes set out clearly and precisely what the legislation means. They draw on precedent and case law and explain the implications of every clause in technical terms. These statutory codes are the authoritative source of advice for anyone who wants a rigorous analysis of the legislation's detail. For lawyers, advocates and human resources experts in particular, they will be invaluable. As with the Act, the Codes apply to England, Scotland and Wales.

These Codes of Practice are available here.

We have also produced Technical Guidance on Schools, Further and Higher Education and the Publice Sector Equality Duty. Technical Guidance is a non-statutory version of a cod, however it will still provide a formal, authorative and comprehensive legal interpretation of the PSED and education sections of the Act.

This Technical Guidance is available here.

  • Panel of Counsel

Members of the Commission’s panel of counsel are our preferred providers of external legal services, including representation and advice. These services support our advisory, influencing, regulatory and enforcement work across the equality and human rights spheres, including strategic litigation in domestic and European courts.

We made the following recommendations for appointment to our panel in March 2015 following an open competition:

EHRC’s panel of counsel: Scotland

The panel will operate as a framework agreement for up to 4 years.

The Commission may decide to run a further competition before the expiry of the term to expand the panel membership. If we decide to do so, we would advertise our intention on our website.

The Commission has also made the following recommendations for appointment to our panel in England and Wales

Last Updated: 19 Feb 2016