EQUALITY: call to widen the powers of proposed CEHR

The proposed Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) should be able to bring human rights actions in its own name, not just litigation under equalities legislation, the Law Society suggested last week.

A Chancery Lane report recommended that the litigation remit of the body - which is scheduled to replace the Disability Rights Commission, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality in 2006 - should go beyond the power of the current bodies.

It said the CEHR should be able to bring human rights litigation where this would promote principles of equality - even if there would be no action under equalities legislation, which is often limited to discrimination in the employment context.

The report added the CEHR would also be best placed to bring human rights litigation where there is no equality aspect.

Stephen Grosz, a partner at London firm Bindman & Partners, who drafted the paper, said: 'The Legal Services Commission gives public funding but sometimes [human rights litigation] will not pass the cost/benefit analysis because it will attract very small or no damages - even though there may be important principles at stake.

'The Department of Trade and Industry's task force and [Parliament's] joint committee on human rights will put big pressure on the government to allow human rights litigation to be brought by the CEHR.'

Rachel Rothwell