Information Note on the Court’s case-law 263
June 2022
L.F. v. the United Kingdom (dec.) - 19839/21
Decision 24.5.2022 [Section IV]
Article 14
Discrimination
Exclusion of non-members of Orthodox Jewish Community from social housing owned by a charity catering for that community, within State’s wide margin of appreciation: inadmissible
Facts – The applicant is a single mother of four children, who lived in social rented accommodation, provided to her by her local authority. While in temporary accommodation, the applicant became aware of several four-bedroom properties owned by a charity that provided housing for members of the Orthodox Jewish Community (“OJC”). As part of the local authority’s arrangements for allocating accommodation, the charity would make some of its housing available to individuals who had applied for social housing. However, in line with its agreements with the charity, the local authority would in practice only “nominate” potential tenants for those properties if they were members of the OJC. The applicant therefore was not put forward for consideration by the charity.
The applicant lodged judicial review proceedings against the local authority and the charity, challenging the latter’s housing criteria and the agreement with the local authority, on grounds that they amounted to unlawful direct discrimination. She appealed unsuccessfully up to the Supreme Court.
Law – Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 8:
The arrangement between the local authority and the charity in the case had impacted upon the eligibility of the applicant and her family for assistance in finding suitable accommodation. The Court therefore accepted that the facts of the case fell within the ambit of Article 8. The applicant had also been treated differently from members of the OJC on account of her non-membership of a religious community, insofar as she had been denied access to accommodation which, pursuant to the arrangement, had to be accorded to families belonging to the OJC. Further, the applicant, having a large family, had been in a comparable situation to members of the OJC who had likewise been seeking accommodation capable of catering to similar family sizes.
Nonetheless, the difference in treatment had been objectively and reasonably justified:
Article 14 did not prohibit a member State from treating groups differently in order to correct “factual inequalities” between them, as had been at issue in the present case. The domestic court had addressed in great detail the significant hardship faced by the OJC in the private rental sector. In particular, members faced high levels of poverty, prejudice and an exponential increase in anti-Semitic hate crime. They also constituted a significant portion of those on the waiting list for larger accommodation, owing to their family sizes, and thus had a pressing need for properties that would reduce the particular and intensified risk of eviction from overcrowded accommodation.
Unlike in other case-law before the court (see for example Ivanova and Cherkezov v. Bulgaria), the interference did not consist in the loss of a person’s only home; the applicant had been housed in temporary accommodation and complained about a restriction on the properties available to her for longer-term rehousing. Rights of central importance to the individual’s identity, self-determination, physical and moral integrity, maintenance of relationships with others and a settled and secure place in the community, which might lead to a narrower margin of appreciation being afforded to the State, had therefore not been concerned.
Further, in the present case, the domestic courts had carefully considered whether there had been a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realised by the arrangement, and at each level of jurisdiction they had agreed that it had been objectively and reasonably justified. Among other things, the courts had noted that the effect of the charity’s allocation policy had been to withdraw 1% of units from the pool of potentially available properties for letting. Consequently, the disadvantage to persons who had not been members of the OJC had been miniscule.
In the light of the foregoing, the arrangement between the local authority and the charity had not exceeded the wide margin of appreciation afforded to the national authorities in such cases.
Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).
(See also Ivanova and Cherkezov v. Bulgaria, 46577/15, 21 April 2016, Legal Summary)
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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