Discriminatory housing allocation policy upheld as being justified and proportionate (R (on the application of Z and others) v Hackney London Borough Council)

Local Government analysis: The Court of Appeal refused to disturb findings of the Divisional Court, on a wealth of evidence, that an Orthodox Jewish housing association’s policy of not housing non–Orthodox Jewish seekers of social housing, was both justified and proportionate. The court also made clear that it is not easily persuaded to interfere with such first instance findings, without an undermining error of law or of reasoning first being established, and no such error was found to exist in this case. Very good reasons for restricting only 1% of the social housing stock in Hackney to Orthodox Jews were established, which were held to far outweigh the disadvantage to persons such as the claimant, who as a non–Orthodox Jew, who cannot access that housing stock.

Written by Adam Heppinstall.

This article was first published on 01/07/2019. Reproduced by kind permission of Lexis Nexis PSL.  For more articles like this, please see here.