Equality Tribunal - Lengthy delay equals denial of justice

There is an incontrovertible precept that justice delayed is justice denied, and having to wait three years to have an issue of equality dealt with amounts to precisely just that.

It is unacceptable that anybody who has a problem under the nine headings which the law provides are serious enough an equality ordeal to investigate, should have to wait so long to have a perceived grievance adjudicated upon.

Today a report launched by the Equality Tribunal will show such to be the case.

The delay in delivering justice is because the Government will not commit sufficient resources to allow the agency to operate efficiently and effectively.

The Equality Tribunal is an independent body, set up under the Employment Equality Act 1998, and constitutes the basis on which somebody may have recourse to the law on several grounds if those rights are denied.

While the authority may have an expanded role and more functions than the old Employment Equality Agency, which it replaced, it is ludicrous that it should take so long to exercise them.

The gamut of the authority relates to nine important sectors, including disability, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief and marital status.

Because of the unwarranted delay, caused by the lack of resources, people who are pursuing claims of discrimination on racial, sexual and other forms of discrimination for forced to wait three years until their case event commences, or is set in process.

That lack of resources means that there are just 10 equality officers overseeing all cases for both hearing and mediation nationally.

Importantly, the tribunal has the power to make legally binding rulings and order the payment of awards, which means that people with a grievance can have resource to this system rather than having to go to the expense of legal action.

It should be an arm of legislation which is readily available to anybody who wishes to avail of it, but currently the times it takes to invoke it would put people off.

According to Niall Crowley, the chief executive of the Equality Authority, which is the country’s overall equality watchdog, it is unfair that people should have to wait so long, particularly if they were forced to work or live under continuing discrimination.

It is totally inequitable, because whether a complainant is in the right or otherwise, the issue has to be resolved within a very reasonable period.

Three years — or anything comparable — is completely untenable.