The European Advocate General, whose opinion is normally always followed by the European Court of Justice, has given an opinion in relation to a Belgian case where an employer in Belgian and fitted windows was advertising vacancies but said in the media that it would not employ Moroccans as customers were scared of them breaking into their houses.

Effectively the firm was saying that if it employed Moroccans, it would be putting itself out of business.

The Belgian equivalent of the Equality and Human Rights Commission pursued the Company for direct discrimination. The Advocate General concluded that it would be possible to be guilty of discrimination by making a public statement which was discriminatory, that there had to be a victim.

The Advocate General felt that the Belgian Equality Commission did not have the right to bring claims of Direct Discrimination against an employer where no-one had actually complained that they had actually suffered a detriment.

As an interesting technical side point, the Race Relations Act, Section 28 gives the Equality and Human Rights Commission the power to bring proceedings in relation to indirect discriminatory practices but, even where there is no such complainant, that no such power exists for direct discrimination.