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A new directorship has been created in the civil service, with responsibility for enacting the incoming Prevention of Discrimination Ordinance, however, two successful amendments from Deputy John Dyke has altered two elements of the role.
The Employment and Equal Opportunities Service (EEOS) Law establishes the Office of the Director of the EEOS and sets out the director’s powers and functions. They’ll be able to investigate possible instances of discrimination and issue fines and warnings.
The law was proposed by the Committee for Employment & Social Security and its President, Deputy Peter Roffey, said: “It is an essential part of the legislative package required to support the production of the Prevention of Discrimination Ordinance... I should stress that the EEOS is not a new service, it's a reshaping or rebranding of the existing Employment Relations Service, recognising that it's going to have an expanded function beyond the field of employment.”
Deputy Dyke pushed through two amendments to the Law yesterday, while failing to convince the assembly to vote through his initial amendment.
Amendment 1, he said, “is a fairly straightforward... non-controversial" piece of housekeeping.
“[It] makes it clear that he is limited to dealing with discrimination as defined under the Prevention of Discrimination Ordinance and the Sex Discrimination Employment Ordinance respectively.”
Deputy Roffey took issue with the amendment: “You'll emasculate this person completely. Now, maybe that's what Deputy Dyke wants to do - I hope it's not, but [you’ll be] fundamentally changing and reducing and minimising the impact of the new director, that we, as an assembly, have agreed ought to be in place yesterday.”
The amendment was voted on 16 – 16, with it failing by virtue of equality of votes.
The second amendment sought to circumscribe the powers granted to the new director, to make sure they can only be used to demand documents from people who are believed to have breached the law.
ESS thought the amendment was fairly innocuous and took no real issue with it, and it was voted through 31 to 1.
It was the final amendment that saw real opposition from the proposers of the legislation, the intention to move the burden of proof from an appellant to the director when pursuing a case.
Despite arguing that it was a fairly straightforward amendment, Deputy Dyke found resistance from the Vice-President of ESS, Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez.
“The Committee... strongly opposes amendment three,” she said. “This amendment seeks to switch the burden of proof in Section 75 from what it currently says - which is on an appeal under this section, the appellant shall have the burden of proof and the final right of reply - to reverse this to...the Director shall have the burden of proof and the appellant, the final right of reply.”
"What is proposed in the amendment is a complete reversal of normal practice with respect to appeals, without any obvious rationale for so doing.”
In response to the debate, Deputy Dyke said, in this particular instance, the change was essential.
"[This is in] the interest of justice and putting the burden of proof on the person making the allegations. It's not a criminal burden of proof. It's a civil burden of proof... I do believe that's the fair thing to do.”
It was voted through 18 to 15 and the entire Law was finally voted through 33 to one. The one person who voted against it was Deputy David de Lisle, and three deputies – Mark Helyar, Dave Mahoney and Carl Meerveld – chose not to vote on it (ne vote pas).
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