Mandla v. Dowell-Lee

"Mandla v. Dowell-Lee" [1983] 2 AC 548 is a United Kingdom law case on racial discrimination. It held that Sikhs are to be considered an ethnic group for the purposes of the Race Relations Act 1976.

Facts

A Sikh boy was refused entry to Park Grove School, Birmingham by the headmaster, because his father refused to make him stop wearing a turban and cut his hair. Derry Irvine appeared for the Commission for Racial Equality, which was really bringing the case.

Court of Appeal

They lost in the Court of Appeal, [1983] QB 1. Lord Denning MR held,

"The statute in section 3(1) contains a definition of a “racial group”. It means a “group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins.” That definition is very carefully framed. Most interesting is that it does not include religion or politics or culture. You can discriminate for or against Roman Catholics as much as you like without being in breach of the law. You can discriminate for or against Communists as much as you please, without being in breach of the law. You can discriminate for or against the “hippies” as much as you like, without being in breach of the law. But you must not discriminate against a man because of his colour or of his race or of his nationality, or of “his ethnic or national origins.”

‘You must remember that it is perfectly lawful to discriminate against groups of people to whom you object - so long as they are not a racial group. You can discriminate against the Moonies or the Skinheads or any other group which you dislike or to which you take objection. No matter whether your objection to them is reasonable or unreasonable, you can discriminate against them - without being in breach of the law.’"

He held that Sikhs were not a racial or ethnic group.

House of Lords

On appeal, Lord Fraser held that ethnic origins meant a group which was a segment of the population distinguished from others by a sufficient combination of shared customs, beliefs, traditions and characteristics derived from a common or presumed common past, even if not drawn from what in biological terms was a common racial stock. A combination of factors which gives the group an historically determined social identity in their own eyes and in those outside the group. Sikhs were in that sense a racial group defined by reference to ethnic origins for the purpose of the Act, although they were not biologically distinguishable from the other peoples of the Punjab.

ee also

*UK employment discrimination law
*UK labour law
*Human Rights Act 1998

Notes

External links

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