How to use the Race Relations Act Questionnaire RR65, and its importance, are demonstrated by the high-profile UK case Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006), where the Employment Tribunal found race discrimination and, following Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group’s refusal to reinstate Mr Chagger as the Tribunal had ordered to remedy the wrong done, awarded the record-breaking compensation of 2.8 million. In 2006, Abbey Santander Group (the UK retail bank owned by the powerful Emilio Botin Banco Santander Central Hispano Group BSCH, and which is to be re-branded as Santander share price soon) dismissed Balbinder Chagger from employment, stating compulsory redundancy as the reason. Mr Chagger, on the other hand, believed that the actual reason behind his dismissal was racial discrimination. Emilio Botin Abbey Grupo Santander banking group employed Mr Chagger, of Indian origin, as a Trading Risk Controller. He earned about 100,000 per year and reported into Nigel Hopkins.
Aggrieved employees who believe they have suffered racial discrimination in the workplace and are considering initiating legal action may serve a Race Relations Act Questionnaire RR65 upon the employer. The Race Relation Act (Questions and Replies) Order 1977 sets out the procedure for the Race Discrimination Questionnaire RR 65 procedure.
The aggrieved employee serves his questionnaire on a standard form called RR65. The RR 65 form contains some standard questions, like to what extent does the employer agree with the aggrieved employee’s account of events, what is the employer’s account of events, and does the employer accept that the employee has been racially discriminated against (and if not, then why not). The employee serving the questionnaire may append his own specifically taylored questions at the end of the standard questions.
Serving an RR65 Race Relations Act Questionnaire is not necessary in order to process the discrimination through formal legal proceedings; it is an option open to the aggrieved employee. However, it is an important option because it gives the aggrieved employee a unique opportunity to seek evidence in support of his case (by permitting the inclusion of searching questions), as well as, to collect further information useful for deciding whether or not to continue with legal proceeding. So, the aggrieved employee should give serious consideration to serving a Race Relations Act Questionnaire, and deploy questions aimed at uncovering evidence which is known only to the employer and proving the racial discrimination suffered, uncovering fully the employer’s defence, and ascertaining the grounds that are accepted by the employer and those that are disputed.
The employer is expected to reply to the questionnaire in writing within a reasonable time, considered to be 8 weeks from the date the of receipt. However, the employer does not have to reply to it, and cannot be forced to reply by any Employment Tribunal. If the employer does reply, then the reply may be admitted as evidence to an Employment Tribunal. If the employer doesn’t reply within the time limit and/or gives evasive or ambiguous answers, then the Employment Tribunal may hold such responses against the employer. If the Employment Tribunal believes the employer purposely and without good reason didn’t reply within the time limit and/or gave ambiguous and/or evasive answers, then the Race Relations Act 1976 requires the Tribunal to draw any negative inferences it considers just and equitable, including the negative inference that the employer committed the unlawful racial discrimination. This means that an Employment Tribunal can make a ruling of racial discrimination based just on the negative inferences it drew; however, an Employment Tribunal is unlikely to do that in practice, but it may decide to take a highly serious view of the employer’s failure to reply properly and be influenced by it in its decisions. The employee can improve the likelihood of the Employment Tribunal drawing negative inferences by posing reasonable questions in the questionnaire and making efforts to chase and encourage the employer to reply properly. The employer will be disadvantaged in not knowing before it faces the Employment Tribunal the consequences of its failures; by the time the employer is in front of the Tribunal, it may be too late to make good any failures. An employee who deploys the race discrimination questionnaire procedure automatically gains this tactical advantage.
Such was the scenario that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had got itself into with Mr Chagger. The Tribunal decided that Emilio Botin Santander Abbey had failed to answer Mr Chagger’s questionnaire properly. Mr Chagger had asked Abbey Santander to provide details of the legal actions of race discrimination that had been brought against it since 1 January 2001. Grupo Santander Abbey answered with 17 citations of incidents. With regards to 6, Abbey Santander simply asserted that it didn’t know the results of the actions and that it was unable to find out during the time period in which the race discrimination questionnaire had to be answered; it never provided any further or follow up answers to Mr Chagger. The Employment Tribunal ruled that Abbey Santander’s answers were evasive. Santander Abbey’s failure to properly answer the questionnaire, contributed to the Employment Tribunal’s finding that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger in his dismissal.
The serving of an RR65 questionnaire does not by itself begin any legal action; legal action is started with a separate procedure. If no legal action is ever begun, then the questionnaire and the reply remain a private correspondence between the employee and employer. If there is sufficient other evidence that suggests race discrimination and the employee is giving serious consideration to taking legal action, then serving an RR65 questionnaire would be appropriate; because the employer’s answers may help the employee to make a final decision. However, if the employee does not seriously intend to pursue legal action, then serving the RR65 questionnaire would be inappropriate; because it may unnecessarily aggravate the employer and/or the employer’s reply may emotionally affect the employee into taking legal action he had not intended.
The Chagger v Emilio Botin Abbey Santander case did not end at the Employment Tribunal stage. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins escalated the case to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) by appealing against the original Employment Tribunal’s rulings of racial discrimination and the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation. In 2008, the EAT upheld the original Employment Tribunal’s ruling of 2006, that both Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger. The EAT did, however, accept Abbey Santander’s appeal against the 2.8 million compensation and sent it back to the original Employment Tribunal for reconsideration. In 2009, the case was escalated even higher, to the Court of Appeal (the 2nd highest court in UK). The Court of Appeal’s List of Hearings showed the appeal hearing was held on 7/8 July 2009. The Court of Appeal’s judgement and transcription were not available when writing this article. The 11KBW set of barristers’ chambers (who represented Emilio Botin Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins in the Court of Appeal hearing), had reported that the hearing was to be only about quantum (i.e., the compensation) and not about liability also (i.e., not race discrimination also). That would appear to suggest that the wrongful act of unlawful discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins was finalised by the EAT when it upheld the original Tribunal’s ruling that Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger, and that Mr Chagger had appealed against the EAT’s ruling to send back the compensation award for reconsideration.