Ali v McDonagh

Section 12 of the Race Relations Act 1976 concerns qualifying bodies with authority to confer a qualification, recognition or approval needed for, or facilitating, engagement in a profession, calling, trade or activity. It does not cover a political party’s internal selection or nomination of local-government candidates. That process confers no professional status or qualification of the kind contemplated by the section. The court held that Sawyer v Ahsan was wrongly decided. Section 25 was capable of applying to the Labour Party, although whether its membership arrangements involved genuine personal selection remained for the County Court. The appeal was allowed and the Tribunal proceedings were dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

Zafar Ali and Harmohinderpal Singh Sohal, members of the Labour Party, were suspended from party office and representation pending disciplinary investigations. The suspension prevented them from being nominated for selection as Labour candidates in local-government elections. They alleged racial discrimination.

The Employment Tribunal held that it had jurisdiction under section 12 of the Race Relations Act 1976. The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed the Labour Party’s appeal and rejected jurisdiction under section 25. The central issue before the Court of Appeal was whether the complaints fell within section 12, section 20 or section 25.

1. Appeal allowed. The complaints fell outside the jurisdiction of the Employment Tribunal, and the Respondents’ Originating Applications were dismissed. Permission to appeal to the House of Lords was refused.
2. Parts II and III of the Race Relations Act 1976 had materially different jurisdictional and procedural regimes. The court did not decide whether the Parts were mutually exclusive, but considered that any overlap would be rare.
3. Section 12 had to be read as a whole. Following Tattari v PPP Ltd. [1998] ICR 106, it applied to a body empowered to confer a professional qualification or approval needed to practise a profession, calling, trade or comparable activity. A body’s political or commercial interests did not make it a qualifying body.
4. The Labour Party’s selection of a local-government candidate, or acceptance of a nomination into the selection pool, conferred no meaningful professional status or qualification. The court held that section 12 did not apply and that Sawyer v Ahsan [2000] ICR 1 was wrongly decided.
5. For section 25(1)(b), the relevant test, derived from Charter v Race Relations Board [1973] AC 868 and Dockers’ Labour Club Ltd. v Race Relations Board [1976] AC 285, was whether admission involved genuine personal selection. The rules should be examined first, followed by a factual inquiry into how admission was actually conducted. On the limited evidence, section 25 was capable of applying to the Labour Party, but the County Court would have to determine the factual question.
6. The court expressed no concluded view on section 20. The appeal was allowed with costs as agreed.

• Employment Tribunal: held that it had jurisdiction under section 12 of the Race Relations Act 1976.
• Employment Appeal Tribunal: dismissed the Labour Party’s appeal and rejected the argument that the County Court had jurisdiction under section 25.
• Court of Appeal: allowed the appeal, held that section 12 did not apply, and dismissed the Respondents’ Originating Applications as outside the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.