Lord Steyn once stated that the victimization of those who complain of discrimination under the equality legislation should be treated as seriously as the discrimination itself. Empirical research, demonstrating the fear of reprisals, supports this. If, say, employees can be denied promotions, grievance processes, transfers, or references because of a complaint, their careers could be frozen for years or even destroyed. This would undermine the legislation’s principal rubrics against discrimination and harassment. Hence, the equality legislation has provided an independent cause of action for victimization. Yet, from the earliest days of this legislation (beginning with the Sex Discrimination Act 1975), the courts have afforded the victimization provisions a particularly narrow construction. In 1993, it was suggested that the resulting ‘weak’ victimization provisions could be ‘supplemented’ with the law of (criminal) contempt of court, by filling the gaps left by the narrow interpretations and moreover, providing a stronger ‘deterrent value’ of criminal proceedings. This paper explores that suggestion by reviewing the subsequent case law. It begins by setting out the legislation and the problematic ‘narrow’ interpretations. This is followed by an outline of the relevant principles of contempt of court and then reviews some prominent victimization cases. This review shows that indeed principles of contempt have been imported into some of these cases, but not in the way anticipated. It reveals that first, contempt was used to restrict the victimization provisions, second, it was ignored to fill obvious gaps in these provisions, and third, that some victimization cases ought to have been referred for contempt but were not. It concludes by identifying that this ‘on–off’ relationship between victimization and contempt of court exposes the judiciary’s reluctance to take the administration of justice as seriously for equality law as it does for other fields.

中文翻译：

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平等法下的法定解释、受害及其与藐视法庭的“开-关”关系

斯泰恩勋爵曾表示，根据平等立法对那些抱怨歧视的人的受害应与歧视本身一样受到严肃对待。实证研究表明害怕报复，支持这一点。例如，如果员工因投诉而被拒绝晋升、申诉程序、调动或推荐信，他们的职业生涯可能会被冻结多年甚至毁于一旦。这将破坏立法反对歧视和骚扰的主要内容。因此，平等立法为受害提供了独立的诉因。然而，从这项立法的早期（从 1975 年的《性别歧视法》开始），法院就为受害条款提供了一个特别狭窄的解释。1993年，有人建议，由此产生的“弱”受害条款可以用（刑事）藐视法庭法“补充”，填补狭隘解释留下的空白，此外，提供更强的刑事诉讼“威慑价值”。本文通过回顾随后的判例法来探讨该建议。它首先列出立法和有问题的“狭义”解释。随后概述了藐视法庭的相关原则，然后回顾了一些突出的受害案例。这项审查表明，蔑视的原则确实已被引入其中一些案件中，但并非以预期的方式。它揭示了第一，蔑视被用来限制受害条款，第二，它被忽略以填补这些条款的明显空白，第三，一些受害案件应该被提交蔑视，但没有。结论是确定受害与藐视法庭之间的这种“开关”关系暴露了司法机构不愿像对待其他领域一样认真对待平等法的司法行政。