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Discrimination and fairness are major concerns in algorithmic models. This is particularly true in insurance, where protected policyholder attributes are not allowed to be used for insurance pricing. Simply disregarding protected policyholder attributes is not an appropriate solution as this still allows for the possibility of inferring protected attributes from non-protected covariates, leading to the phenomenon of proxy discrimination. Although proxy discrimination is qualitatively different from the group fairness concepts discussed in the machine learning and actuarial literature, group fairness criteria have been proposed to control the impact of protected attributes on the calculation of insurance prices. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relationship between direct and proxy discrimination in insurance and the most popular group fairness axioms. We provide a technical definition of proxy discrimination and derive incompatibility results, showing that avoiding proxy discrimination does not imply satisfying group fairness and vice versa. This shows that the two concepts are materially different. Furthermore, we discuss input data pre-processing and model post-processing methods that achieve group fairness in the sense of demographic parity. As these methods induce transformations that explicitly depend on policyholders' protected attributes, it becomes ambiguous whether direct and proxy discrimination is, in fact, avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 25 March 2021, the Supreme Court of India formally recognized the legal concept of indirect discrimination in Lt Col Nitisha v Union of India. This article uses Nitisha as a point of inflexion to study the development of Indian indirect discrimination law and Nitisha's contribution to this development. It shows that indirect discrimination law is more complex and contested than it appears when focusing solely on Nitisha. By zooming out and considering what Nitisha adds to pre-existing law and how it has been received in subsequent judgments, the article argues for a measured view of Nitisha's contribution and, in turn, of the state of Indian indirect discrimination law. Importantly, judicial recognition of indirect discrimination remains slow, uncertain, and unsteady. Even in the few cases where it has been recognized, the concept of indirect discrimination remains abstract and indeterminate, and questions on its adjudication remain far from resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Romania, a country with only 3 women rectors out of 54 public state universities, is at the opposite pole of gender equality to Denmark, which reached a 30% threshold of females in higher management positions in academia. Nevertheless, despite the cultural differences, this paper manages to identify similar indirect discrimination issues between the two countries. Methods: Extending a previous systematic review focused on Romania, the study employs similar research methods to draw a comparison between Denmark and Romania. Four databases (Research Gate, ProQuest, JSTOR, and EBSCO) were searched for academic papers referring to indirect forms of discrimination that occurred at some point in the Danish Higher Education. The papers had to fit one of the four categories previously identified: recruitment & selection, evaluation, promotion, and collaboration with students, colleagues, and supervisors. Results: A total of 11,056 articles were identified in the first step of the search, however, only 24 checked all the selection criteria and were included in this systematic review. The focus was to identify if current issues still happening in Romania, occurred at some point in Denmark too. This reasoning helps us to not only draw a comparison between the two countries but also to identify the period when a leading country dealt with similar indirect forms of discrimination. Discussions: Stereotypes affect women's careers even in a country where the vast majority of the population embraces gender equality. In Danish Academia, more women than men were employed in temporary positions or part-time contracts, and the glass ceiling and glass escalator effects are still encountered, but at a lower rate. Furthermore, in a similar manner to the Romanian culture, the segregation was attributed to individual preferences, instead of recognizing systemic discrimination occurring in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks how UK judges examine racialized economic impact. It aims to identify the standards that are applied in judicial reasoning and the results that follow in terms of addressing racial discrimination and in particular indirect discrimination which has a disproportionate impact on racialized groups. The main hypothesis is that while, as Arden LJ confirmed in Elias that economic matters are justiciable, and that racial discrimination attracts a high level of judicial scrutiny, curiously, together, when it comes to judging racialized economic impact, the standard of scrutiny wanes. Judges seem to accord an inordinately and inexplicably high level of deference to decision-makers in the economic context. The article thus shows that material concerns in racial discrimination are perhaps treated triflingly within UK equality law but that this appears to be no different, say, for sex discrimination, showing a general neglect of material conditions in equality law broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Human Resource Management / Zarzadzanie Zasobami Ludzkimi is the property of Institute of Labour & Social / Instytut Pracy i Spraw Socjalnych and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The subject of this study is a comparative law analysis of the issue concerning the principle of equality and the prohibition of discrimination in the Czech and Polish legal systems. The subject is still topical because of the phenomenon of discrimination occurring in a workplace among employees. This phenomenon is of multidimensional character and its complexity causes numerous problems for entities interpreting the provisions within this field. The aspects related to discrimination are not and will not be an easy subject, especially because they concern delicate and sensitive aspects related to human dignity, including the right to privacy. In employment, employees should most of all be treated equally in terms of the way of establishing and terminating their work relationships, the conditions of employment, qualifications and most importantly, aspects related to political beliefs, trade union membership or religion practiced. The first part will issues of a general nature, primarily those relating to international and European regulations regarding the principle of equality and the prohibition of discrimination will be presented. In the further part of the article, the topic of anti-discrimination provisions under Polish and Czech law will be discussed and legal solutions in this matter will be presented.

Fat microaggressions are microlevel social practices in the form of commonplace everyday indignities that insult fat people and have been documented anecdotally and qualitatively. However, no psychometrically validated scale exists for measuring fat microaggressions, despite decades of microaggression research demonstrating their negative health associations. This research describes the development and construct validation of the Fat Microaggressions Scale across four studies. Study 1 focused on item development through a systematic review, qualitative analysis of Tweets using #fatmicroaggressions, and a Delphi review. Study 2 (N = 343) determined that a four-factor structure was appropriate in an online community sample of fat adults. Study 3 (N = 410) confirmed the factor structure in a new online sample of fat adults and provided initial evidence of construct validity. Study 4 (N = 197) found evidence of test–retest reliability and demonstrated additional construct validity. Our findings offer a newly validated quantitative measure of fat microaggressions and an initial framework for naming and categorizing these experiences, which may be used to advance the study of fat microaggressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In applications of predictive modeling, such as insurance pricing, indirect or proxy discrimination is an issue of major concern. Namely, there exists the possibility that protected policyholder characteristics are implicitly inferred from non-protected ones by predictive models and are thus having an undesirable (and possibly illegal) impact on prices. A technical solution to this problem relies on building a best-estimate model using all policyholder characteristics (including protected ones) and then averaging out the protected characteristics for calculating individual prices. However, such an approach requires full knowledge of policyholders' protected characteristics, which may in itself be problematic. Here, we address this issue by using a multi-task neural network architecture for claim predictions, which can be trained using only partial information on protected characteristics and produces prices that are free from proxy discrimination. We demonstrate the proposed method on both synthetic data and a real-world motor claims dataset, in which proxy discrimination can be observed. In both examples we find that the predictive accuracy of the multi-task network is comparable to a conventional feed-forward neural network, when the protected information is available for at least half of the insurance policies. However, the multi-task network has superior performance in the case when the protected information is known for less than half of the insurance policyholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Journal of Modern Science is the property of Alcide De Gasperi University of Euroregional Economy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we provide evidence on attitudes toward indirect past-in-present educational discrimination (i.e., educational discrimination that took place in the past but has a negative impact on the current employment opportunities of the discriminated against workers). We use an original vignette-based hypothetical survey experiment and collect data from a representative sample of the US population. We find that a significant majority of respondents support costly compensation for past educational discrimination. Moreover, we find that respondents are as sensitive to indirect past-in-present educational discrimination as they are to present-day employment discrimination. We point out that the causal effects on attitudes are stronger for the intentionality of discrimination than for its financial consequences for the discriminated group. Finally, attitudes appear to be driven more by respondents' political perspective than by their own actual identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the issues of indirect and associative discrimination in the European Union law, with focus on the case law of the European Court of Justice, and the importance of the case law of this court for the sphere of employment. While prohibition of indirect discrimination was introduced in the European Union law a couple of decades ago, associative discrimination at the European Union level is, so far, addressed only by the European Court of Justice. In this regard, the concept of associative discrimination is still, to some extent, vague and subject to debate, while the dilemmas and risks in relation to this concept exponentially grow when reflected upon through lenses of indirect discrimination. The goal of the paper is to point out the importance, but also the risks of recognizing indirect associative discrimination in employment, all in the context of taking one step further in achieving substantive equality in the world of work.

Studies show that machine learning models trained from biased data can discriminate against groups with certain sensitive attributes. This problem can be mitigated by cleaning the original data or learning fair representations. However, collecting real data in real-life is extremely time and resource-consuming, whereas generative models (e.g., GANs) can create new data that enable more application scenarios. Therefore, utilizing fair data generated by generative models can benefit various downstream tasks. In this paper, we propose a information-minimizing generative adversarial network to improve the fairness of machine learning by generating fair data. An ANOVA-based latent factor is constructed in the input for reducing the accuracy loss, and the joint adversarial training between the generator and classifier can better solve the indirect discrimination and achieve fair classification. Extensive experiments on various environments show the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab is the property of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Algorithmic discrimination has rapidly become a topic of intense public and academic interest. This article explores three issues raised by algorithmic discrimination: (1) the distinction between direct and indirect discrimination, (2) the notion of disadvantageous treatment, and (3) the moral badness of discriminatory automated decision-making. It argues that some conventional distinctions between direct and indirect discrimination appear not to apply to algorithmic discrimination, that algorithmic discrimination may often be discrimination between groups, as opposed to against groups, and that it is not necessarily the case that morally bad algorithmic discrimination gives us reason to not use automated decision-making. For each of the three issues, the article explores implications for algorithmic discrimination, suggests some alternative answers, and clarifies how we may want to think of discrimination more broadly in light of lessons drawn from the context of algorithmic discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the potentially wrongful discriminatory nature of certain of our dating preferences. It argues that the wrongfulness of such preferences lies primarily in the simple lookism they involve. While it is ultimately permissible for us to date people partly because of how they look, I argue that we have a duty to 'look behind' people's appearance, which I take to mean that we ought not, on the basis of their appearance, to regard them as absolutely out of the question for us to engage with in a romantic setting. Further, constraints similar to those suggested by a duty to look behind people's appearance gain support from another duty we have, namely, a duty to counteract, also in our daily lives, the fact that people are undeservedly disadvantaged in various ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Discriminatory bias in algorithmic systems is widely documented. How should the law respond? A broad consensus suggests approaching the issue principally through the lens of indirect discrimination, focusing on algorithmic systems' impact. In this article, we set out to challenge this analysis, arguing that while indirect discrimination law has an important role to play, a narrow focus on this regime in the context of machine learning algorithms is both normatively undesirable and legally flawed. We illustrate how certain forms of algorithmic bias in frequently deployed algorithms might constitute direct discrimination, and explore the ramifications—both in practical terms, and the broader challenges automated decision‐making systems pose to the conceptual apparatus of anti‐discrimination law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article clarifies the signs of direct and indirect discrimination in the conditions of armed conflicts and the circle of subjects that bears constitutional and legal responsibility for committing a constitutional offense - discrimination. The methodological basis of the research is the general methods of scientific cognitivism as well as concerning those used in legal science: comparative law, methods of analysis and synthesis, formal logic, etc. The empirical basis of the research is international documents, decisions of the ECHR, current legal acts of Ukraine, and assessment of Ukrainian and foreign experts. The norms of the Geneva Convention on the Protection of the Civilian Population in Time of War and the Prohibition of Discrimination are analyzed. It is noted that hostile discrimination is prohibited, and armed conflict is not an exception to such a prohibition. The provisions of the Geneva Convention, which prohibit hostile discrimination against the entire population of all states in conflict, are aimed at alleviating the suffering de facto caused to the populations of states by war. It is established that regardless of which of the states in conflict exercises jurisdiction over the territory and regardless of whether this state exercises legal or illegal control, but if the state’s control over a certain territory is effective, this state is obliged to behave with all persons under protection equally, without discrimination; apply such measure or combination of control or security measures as may be necessary in time of war. Non-fulfilment or improper fulfillment of the above-mentioned obligations by the parties to the conflict is a violation of the norms of international law and the customs of war The article clarifies the signs of direct and indirect discrimination in the conditions of armed conflicts. In order for discrimination during an armed conflict to be qualified as direct, it is not necessary to prove that the persons were in an identical situation - one hundred percent identity cannot be achieved – it is enough that their situations are similar in fundamentally important points. In order to qualify the treatment as exceptional, a sign must be found by which such different treatment in the conditions of an armed conflict can be identified. It is proven that a state party to the conflict, introducing this or that measure or general policy of the state, must assess the consequences of such a measure/policy of the state from the point of view of whether they may have disproportionately harmful consequences for a specific group of persons. There must be a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means used and the goal that was planned to be achieved, regardless of whether the state carries them out on its territory, or whether it has resorted to extraterritorial behavior and carries out these measures/policies on the territory of another state that is temporarily occupied by it. A state party to the conflict, pursuing a legitimate (legitimate) goal and taking measures to achieve it, must at each stage of their implementation assess and predict what real consequences they lead to. The article emphasizes that on those parts of the territories of one state, over which another state has illegal but effective control, regardless of whether such control was exercised or is being exercised by this other state directly, through the armed forces, or through a subordinate local administration, this other state is considered to have jurisdiction in the specified territory, and therefore bears legal responsibility for its extraterritorial behavior – a violation of the prohibition of discrimination. It is emphasized that international acts on human rights, international customs do not require a state party to the conflict to treat the population of another state party to the conflict more favorably, but direct discrimination is prohibited – worse treatment of this or that person or group of persons without adequate justification. Direct discrimination in the conditions of an armed conflict occurs when: 1) a person (group of persons) who are in the territory under the jurisdiction of the state are treated in a less favorable way, in comparison with the way others were treated or could be treated persons in a similar situation; 2) the reason for this attitude is that this person has certain characteristics that belong to the category of «protected characteristics». Indirect discrimination refers to different treatment of people in the same situations in the conditions of a military conflict; equal treatment of people whose situations are different in the conditions of war. The article also proposes to improve the concept of the circle of subjects of constitutional legal liability by distinguishing: 1) the state that has jurisdiction over its entire territory; 2) of a state that exercises illegal but effective control over a part of the territory of another state, regardless of whether such control was carried out or is being carried out directly, through the armed forces, or through a subordinate local administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Derecho de la Seguridad Social, Laborum is the property of Ediciones Laborum S.L. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the acceptability of the differential treatment of dual citizens within contemporary denationalisation from both doctrinal and normative perspectives with particular focus on the right to non-discrimination as prescribed by the European Convention on Human Rights. The article concludes that denationalisation laws that target only dual citizens very likely have indirect discriminatory effects on particular subgroups of dual citizens along and possibly across discriminatory grounds such as ethnicity, race, gender, religion and national origin. The article contends that prevailing doctrinal justifications are based on a set of misconceptions concerning the suitability, efficacy, necessity and consequently proportionality of denationalisation in Western societies and that the re-emergence of denationalisation in the 21st century is not only illustrative of the inadequacies within current discrimination law norms but enhances them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the CEDAW Committee's General Recommendations and Views on individual complaints, to evaluate its contribution to the elimination of discrimination against women experienced in the context of migration control. It makes two arguments. First, the Committee's General Recommendations contain a range of doctrinal and empirical shortcomings. This opacity, and these omissions, considerably reduce the value of the Committee's statements as a means by which States' discriminatory migration control practices might be contested. Second, the Committee's decisions, in communications concerned with discrimination experienced in the context of migration control, are inconsistent with those standards that it has set, and with the decisions it makes in other types of cases. A detailed analysis of the jurisprudence grounds the conclusion that the Committee is, in practice, according States a margin of appreciation that varies according to the subject of the complaint. Particular, representative communications are drawn on to argue that the margin granted in cases concerned with migration control is over-wide, characteristic not of appropriate (quasi) judicial restraint, but unprincipled deference. The article concludes by suggesting how some of the criticisms outlined may be remedied, notably by the Committee adopting its own justification and proportionality assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2021 6(1), 69-80 | European Forum Insight of 14 April 2021 | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. - II. Setting the scene: chronical of a death foretold. - III. Framing the facts and the law: some open questions of the case. - IV. Disentangling the complementarity of Regulation 883/2004 and Directive 2011/24. - V. Balancing economic freedoms, fundamental rights, treatment capacity and financial stability. - VI. Looking at the case and beyond the case at future crossroads in cross-border healthcare. | (Abstract) This Insight comments the judgment of the Court of Justice in Veselības ministrija (case C-243/19 ECLI:EU:C:2020:872) with a view to highlight its contribution to the effectiveness of equality in access to healthcare within the Union. After a brief introduction and contextualization of the case, this Insight dwells on the interpretative efforts made by AG Hogan and the Second Chamber of the Court to distinguish the scope and reach of Regulation 883/2004 on the coordination of social security systems, from those of Directive 2011/24 on patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare, as well as to determine the degree to which these two acts, read in light of art. 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, require Member States to accommodate patients’ choices based on religious beliefs. This Insight then moves on to assess the judgement taking into account that other similar, and similarly delicate, cases may reach the Court of Justice in the near future indicating a possible, readily available, normative solution capable of ensuring greater equality in access to healthcare.

The gender gap in pensions is greater than the gender gap in wages in the majority of countries in the European Union. Similarly, more women live on a minimum pension than do men. Therefore, the measures that are implemented for minimum benefits must be analysed from a gender perspective to avoid further increasing the gender gap in wages. This study analysed an unexplored aspect in both the academic and judicial spheres, namely, the regulation of the minimum pension in Spain after the 2011 reform and its effect on women's pensions. The analysis highlights indirect sex discrimination in the aforementioned regulations. Therefore, modification measures are proposed to help reduce the gender gap in pensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A policy (practice, act, etc.) indirectly discriminates against a group, G, if, and only if: (1) it does not reflect an objectionable mental state regarding the members of G; (2) it disadvantages members of G; (3) the disadvantages are disproportionate; and (4) G is a socially salient group. I argue that indirect discrimination is not non-instrumentally morally wrong. Clearly, if it were, that would be because it harms members of G disproportionately, i.e., in virtue of features (2) and (3). Harming members of a group disproportionately does appear non-instrumentally wrong. But it is not easy to provide a plausible explanation for the kind of harm and disproportionality involved here that vindicates this initial appearance. This does not mean the concept of indirect discrimination should be jettisoned. It was originally a legal concept, and in closing I briefly suggest that in law it plays a valuable role, even if it is not a genuine moral category. Legal prohibition is an unreliable guide to what is morally wrong, but it is not supposed to be that anyway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In April 2021, the Supreme Court of India decided Nitisha v Union of India, holding that the gender neutral hiring procedure adopted by the Indian Army indirectly discriminated against women officers by disproportionately excluding them from promotion. This effect was experienced due to systemic discrimination against women built into the appointment criteria. To redress systemic discrimination, the State was required not only to abstain from direct or indirect discrimination but also to positively act to bring in structural change. Nitisha makes significant contributions to developing the constitutional understanding of non-discrimination. It identifies the essential nature of discrimination as systemic rather than individualistic and sets out how systemic discrimination operates and can be proved. In recognising indirect discrimination, it lays down a two-stage test to establish it. Crucially, it affirmatively holds, for the first time, that the non-discrimination guarantee can compel State action in redressing systemic discrimination. Nitisha leaves certain questions unanswered: the test for justifying indirect discrimination, the doctrinal reading of the non-discrimination guarantee and the legitimacy of using comparative law. However, seeing Nitisha as one chapter of a constitutional conversation allows us to appreciate its contributions while holding the space open for future judicial efforts at constitutional meaning-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note analyses the recent landmark case of Lt Col Nitisha v Union of India, dated 25 March 2021, where the Supreme Court of India formally recognised the concept of indirect discrimination under Articles 14 and 15(1) of the Indian Constitution. Despite the favourable outcome and conceptual leaps in acknowledging that indirect discrimination is closely tied to substantive equality, the reasoning in the judgment does not fully cohere with these conceptual insights. This note critically examines how Nitisha poses barriers to addressing indirect discrimination with a substantive equality lens, particularly because of an intent-based divide between direct and indirect discrimination, a causal requirement between the norm and disparate impact, adoption of mirror comparators and the lack of clarity on justifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In July 2021, the CJEU handed down its judgment in two cases regarding the wearing of Islamic headscarves at work, which allows employers to ban the wearing of religious and other symbols, but only under certain conditions. This article examines the judgment in detail and argues that it shows some improvements on previous judgments on this issue and present a small glimmer of hope that the CJEU might be moving – albeit very tentatively – towards more protection of Muslim women who want to wear headscarves at work for religious reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the first Italian decision on algorithmic discrimination and discusses the structure of the judgment and the possibility of framing algorithmic discrimination as a case of direct or indirect discrimination.

Copyright of Revista Internacional y Comparada de Relaciones Laborales y Derecho del Empleo is the property of ADAPT University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article argues that the requirement of group disadvantage in indirect belief discrimination is incompatible with the human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The latter protects sincerely held beliefs even if they are not shared by others or part of group orthodoxy. Consequently, the group disadvantage requirement in indirect belief discrimination ought to be interpreted away under section 3 HRA. Doing so, it is argued, does not give an unfair advantage to beliefs over other aspects of personal identity and complies with the legal injunction against judicial involvement in theological or philosophical disputes. The article concludes by arguing that, in light of the UK case law, imposing a requirement of group disadvantage is likely to pose a more significant barrier to secular philosophical beliefs than to religious ones. In light of an understanding of secularism that requires equal treatment of religious and deeply held secular beliefs, it is imperative that such a barrier be dispensed with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and other Gender Diverse (LGBT) persons. It mentions about an indirect discrimination that might be used by United Nations (UN) treaty bodies and independent experts in the furtherance of their work; and mentions about an indirect discrimination on grounds of religion or belief, and draws comparisons with sexual orientation and gender identity.

The article provides the analysis of Latvian national court practice on application of the concept of non-discrimination. The concept was introduced into Latvian legal system by EU law. The definition and case law of the CJEU on indirect discrimination cases demonstrate numerous aspects to be taken into account for the correct application of respective concept. As the concept of indirect discrimination is new in Latvian legal system and, in addition, its complex national court practice reveals numerous aspects posing difficulties in its precise and correct application.

The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000 (PEPUDA) prohibits indirect and direct unfair discrimination in terms of the grounds listed in the act (such as race, sex, and sexual orientation) as well as unlisted grounds (which are to be alleged and proven by an applicant). South African courts had also grappled with the specific issue of indirect unfair discrimination prior to the enactment of PEPUDA, where applicants could rely on the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 directly. This is evident in cases such as Pretoria City Council v Walker 1998 2 SA 363 (CC) and S v Jordan 2002 6 SA 642 (CC). This contribution is an analysis of the pioneering judgment in Social Justice Coalition v Minister of Police 2019 4 SA 82 (WCC) (SCJ case), wherein a South African court for the first time recognised poverty as a ground of indirect discrimination under PEPUDA. This conclusion flows from the court's finding, based on expert evidence that the formula used to allocate police resources in the Western Cape unfairly discriminates against poor and Black people in an indirect manner. The analysis of the SCJ judgment will take place against the backdrop of the antidiscrimination framework under PEPUDA and direct constitutional litigation that predates PEPUDA. The underlying theme of intersectionality will also be discussed, as it was apparent from a reading of the SCJ case that grounds of discrimination often intersect with one another and disproportionately affect certain groups of people.

The paper examines the possibility of exercising the right to culture by meeting the needs in the field of culture within the institutional system in Serbia. The unclear definition of the right to culture and the assumption that cultural needs exist "per se" within public practical policies, leads to cause-and-effect mechanisms and systems that result in the decline in the interest of citizens for art and culture, and ultimately in an unexpressed and undeveloped need in the field of culture in a large number of citizens. In the second part of the paper, the results of the empirical research carried out in the Novi Sad theaters are presented, and they point out that a theater with its cultural activities satisfies only the existing cultural needs. Such an arrangement of the institutional cultural system implies indirect discrimination against the rest of the population.

The reflections here expressed aim at further investigating the arguments presented by the Rio de Janeiro State Public Defender’s Office to the Federal Supreme Court, in the Claim of Breach of Fundamental Precept, number 442, in which the constitutionality of two types of crime are discussed: induced or consented abortion practiced by the pregnant woman and the consented abortion practiced by third parties, with the consent of the pregnant woman (articles 124 and 126 of the Brazilian Penal Code). This paper sustains that the criminalisation of abortion represents a death policy for black women. On this basis, the research defends that racism and the anti-racist dimension of the principle of equality are regarded as the central analytical keys to solving the constitutional controversy.