DISCRIMINATIONSex and race - Lord Chancellor appointing personal friend as special adviser - no indirect discriminationLord Chancellor and another v Coker and another: CA (Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Master of the Rolls, Lords Justice Schiemann and Mummery): 22 November 2001The Lord Chancellor appointed as his special adviser a man personally known to him without considering any other candidate.

Two applicants, both women and one Nigerian, claimed sex and racial discrimination in the appointment.

An employment tribunal held, among other things, that the Lord Chancellor had indirectly discriminated against the applicants without justification within section 1(1)(b) of both the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations Act 1976, to the detriment of the first applicant only.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal [2001] ICR 507, by a majority, allowed the Lord Chancellor's appeal and dismissed the second applicant's cross-appeal.

The applicants appealed.Robin Allen QC and Karon Monaghan (instructed by Deighton Guedalla) for the first applicant.

Karon Monaghan (instructed by Deighton Guedalla) for the second applicant.

Sir Sydney Kentridge QC and Richard McManus QC (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the Lord Chancellor.Held, dismissing the appeal, that to establish indirect discrimination it had to be shown that a requirement or condition had been applied to the applicant which had a disproportionate impact on her sex or racial group; that the condition identified by the tribunal as applying to the applicants, viz personal acquaintance with the Lord Chancellor, did not have a disproportionate impact on the pool of persons who would, but for the condition, be qualified for the appointment because the pool was in effect restricted to the one person actually appointed; therefore, the Lord Chancellor had not indirectly discriminated against either applicant in making the appointment.