Dicsérni jöttem nem temetni: 25 év küzdelem az egyenlő bánásmódért Európában és itthon

Abstract

Farkas analyzes three significant debates in the scholarship on EU and Hungarian equality law, namely scope, intersectionality, and enforcement. She finds that fragmentation within EU equality law is primarily due to economic considerations and a lack of political consensus, and these reasons explain, on the one hand, the unnecessarily narrow material scope and, on the other hand, the asymmetric personal scope in the case of certain characteristics. The hierarchy between the protected characteristics in terms of material scope and its resolution has become one of the most important issues in research, but this has not led to a comprehensive exploration of the possibly necessary differences in levels of protection - especially in measures outside the anti-discrimination directives - and to a resolution of the issue by the legislators. The debate has another important hiatus: the analysis of personal scope, intersectionality, wider EU policies and legal instruments, as well as the enforcement hierarchy. The separate examination of the hierarchy stemming from material and personal scope suggests that the latter does not benefit the same groups as the former. Personal scope protects members of majority groups to a higher degree than minorities in many cases, in that it is more likely to extend to them the legal protections intended for minorities, ignoring the inherent asymmetry in power and resources between the two groups. Finally, enforcement hierarchy seems to run counter to the original claim concerning a hierarchy of protected grounds.