The defence of inherent requirements of the job in unfair discrimination cases

The discrimination jurisprudence in South Africa has developed over the previous decade since the promulgation of the interim and final Constitutions. The Employment Equity Act of 1998 also gave impetus to the development of equality jurisprudence with reference to the workplace. In terms of both the Constitution and the Employment Equity Act, unfair discrimination is forbidden. Both the Constitution and Employment Equity Act list specific grounds on which discrimination would be regarded as unfair. Although discrimination on any of the listed grounds would be regarded as automatically unfair, there is realisation that this cannot be an absolute position. The Employment Equity Act makes provision that employers be able to justify discrimination even on the listed grounds where there are justifiable reasons. In terms of the EEA, it is not unfair discrimination to differentiate between employees on the basis of an inherent requirement of the particular job. It is this defence that is considered in the present treatise. The inherent requirements of the job as a defence in unfair discrimination cases is one, which needs to be carefully considered it in fact requires a clear understanding of what constitutes an inherent requirement. It is equally important to understand that although in one instance it may be justifiable to exclude certain employees on the basis of an inherent requirement of the job, a generalisation may give an employer difficulties under certain circumstances. An employer who is faced with a prospective employee who suffers from a particular illness that would make it impossible to do the job, could raise the defence of an inherent requirement of the job. However, the fact that a particular employee has the same illness as the previous one not employed does not give an employer an automatic right to exclude all prospective employees who suffer from the same illness without having had consideration of their circumstances as well as those of their illnesses. The defence of inherent requirements of the job is therefore valid only where the essence of the business would be undermined by employing or not employing people with certain attributes required or not required to do the job