Discrimination Act - read about rules and rights here

The Discrimination Act

The Discrimination Act is a law that ensures that employees in Danish companies are not treated differently.

The law distinguishes between direct discrimination – also typically referred to as discrimination – and indirect discrimination. The purpose of the law is thus that it must be the employee's or job applicant's qualifications that determine whether a person is promoted or employed in the company.

In this article, we will enlighten you on the following topics:

• The Discrimination Act
• Direct and indirect discrimination
• Age and disability and what it means in relation to the Discrimination Act
• Situations where the Discrimination Act does not apply

Let's start by taking a closer look at what the Discrimination Act entails:

What is the Discrimination Act?

The Discrimination Act was adopted in 1996, and states that it is the qualifications - and only the qualifications - that must determine whether a person is offered a vacant position in the organisation.

The law prohibits, paragraph §1, direct and indirect discrimination in the workplace due to:

• Race, colour and ethnic origin
• Religion
• Beliefs
• Sexual orientation
• National or social origin
• Age
• Handicap
• Political posit

The Discrimination Act comes into force upon employment, during employment and upon dismissal. The law also prohibits harassment due to paragraph 1. subsection 4. 

Employees who are subjected to discrimination are entitled to compensation. The employees can complain to the equal treatment board.

It is worth mentioning that the Discrimination Act does not prohibit general initiatives that do something special in relation to individual groups in the workplace. However, the provisions in the legislation do not enable the employer to initiate projects that, for example, promote the representation of other ethnic groups in the workplace. Affirmative action is permitted only if it promotes an entity's overall employment opportunities.

The Discrimination Act distinguishes between direct and indirect discrimination. We will examine this in more detail in the next section.

What is direct and indirect discrimination?

The Discrimination Act prohibits both direct and indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination can be, for example, if an employer does not hire a person during the hiring process because of the person's skin colour, religion or disability. Direct discrimination is also referred to in everyday speech as discrimination.

Indirect discrimination, on the other hand, is if an employer sets requirements for a work task that are not factual, where the classification criteria affect a certain group of employees. A qualification criterion can be a language requirement. If the language requirement affects a certain group of people, e.g. people with an ethnic origin other than Danish, it must be assessed whether the language requirement is fair in relation to the work task

What does the Discrimination Act say about age and disability?

The age ban is not absolute. An example of this is that it is legal to agree with an employee that the employee must resign from their position when they reach the age of 70. In addition, special rules also apply regarding dismissal, remuneration and employment of employees who have not reached the age of 18.

It is the employer's responsibility to adapt the work tasks of disabled employees so that they can be carried out without difficulty. Thus, the employer must objectively and evaluate which adaptations are relevant in the organisation so that the disabled employee can compete for the position. Here, it is legal for the employer to reject a disabled applicant if the costs become disproportionately large. However, this rule does not apply if the expenses are to some extent covered by the public sector.

When does the Discrimination Act not apply?

The Discrimination Act does not always apply in a work context. An example of this is that churches are allowed to require priests to be members of the national church. The law also does not apply if it is necessary to employ people with certain characteristics for the purpose of carrying out the work. It could be, for example, that the employer owns a poultry slaughterhouse that exports to countries in the Middle East. In this connection, it is typically required that a Muslim be employed to carry out halal slaughter. Here, the workplace can get an exemption.

However, it is only in individual cases that the law does not enter into force. It is therefore recommended that you seek legal assistance if your workplace is in doubt as to whether the Discrimination Act comes into force in a given situation.

Can companies measure employee diversity?

The Discrimination Act clarifies that it is not permitted for the employer to obtain or use information about the employee's ethnicity, race and religion. This prohibition applies regardless of how the information came to the company's attention.

If your company wants an overview of the ethnic composition of its employees, it is possible for Statistics Denmark to carry out special runs according to the CPR measurement method. In this case, the company must turn to Statistics Denmark, which can draw up an overview based on the employees' CPR numbers.

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