As the BBC reports:
Raghib Ahsan, a councillor in Sparkhill, Birmingham, for seven years, claimed discrimination by a [Labour] selection panel before the 1998 local elections.
The House of Lords accepted his appeal against a court ruling which rejected his claim he had been discriminated for being a Pakistani candidate.
It restored an employment tribunal’s decision that found in his favour…
Lord Hoffman said the Court of Appeal had been wrong to overturn the employment tribunal’s decision.
He said the court seemed to be saying it would be acceptable to discriminate against a Pakistani candidate if the panel held no racist views but thought it was better not to have such a candidate because of the public’s perception of a problem within that community.
“It is nothing more than the old plea that you have nothing against employing a black person but the customers would not like it,” he said.
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One Comment
The full House of Lords judgment is at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldjudgmt/jd071121/watt-1.htm
The first half of the judgment (summed up in para 19) is an important procedural decision that political party candidate selection is amendable to discrimination claims in the County Courts, not the employment tribunals. The factual analysis of the Case begins at para 38