Hearing of Equality Act Partial Reform

According to point 3.3.1 “Development of the Rule of Law” of Marin’s Government Programme, the period of government will carry out partial reform of the Equality Act. In addition, in the programme, enshrined in section 3.7, it is stated that it is not obligatory to provide equality plans for different levels of education and to provide for binding equality and equality plans even in early childhood education. An amendment to the Equality Act would implement a government programme entry for equality plans. The existing equality regulation will be updated with the aim of creating clearer and more effective legislation that promotes equality and prevents discrimination.

MDI, together with the Ministry of Justice, held an inclusive virtual hearing for organisations on the reform, addressing equality planning in early childhood education as well as harassment-related issues and training organiser responsibility, possible changes in the definition of harassment and reasonable adjustments to the functionality of compensation. The reform relates to the question that the organiser of education and early childhood education has already been designated as liable on the basis of the Equality Act if s/he does not address any issue of harassment of which s/he has become aware. This is already interpretable from the law, but it is now being considered whether to put the obligation into law more clearly, as with the employer in Section 14 § 2 of the Equality Act. In addition, the working group on the issue has considered whether the definition of harassment should be extended so that harassment could be directed not only at an individual, but also towards a group of people.

The event used a screen.io platform to assemble interactions and views, through which the material assembled came to be used in the preparation of the renewal of the Ministry of Justice’s legislation.