(whereas an EUregulationis directly applicable without any need for national
legislation). However, theEuropean Court of Justice (ECJ), impatient at
national governments which do nothing about issues where a directive would
be unpopular, has begun to develop the argument of ‘direct effect’; directives
which are sufficiently clear and specific may in fact generate rights and duties
inside the legal system of a member state, even if that country’s government has
passed no specific legislation. Thus, in a hypothetical case, a directive instruct-
ing governments to ensure that no one should be subject to more than some
specified level of lead poisoning from car exhausts might enable a British
citizen to sue the government if they are systematically subject to much higher
levels because the government has done nothing to institute the aims of the
directive. The problem is that it is virtually impossible to predict whether or
not a directive will be deemed by the ECJ to have this characteristic of direct
effectiveness. As the debate onfederalismin Europe continues there may be
increasing pressure to reduce the applicability of the direct effect doctrine
because it seems to undermine nationalsovereignty.
Discrimination
Discrimination in politics refers to the singling out—usually for unfavourable
treatment—of certain groups which are defined by such characteristics as race,
language, gender or religion. As a practice it is endemic in most societies; but
during the 20th century, especially in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust,
most democracies made serious efforts to combat it through legislation and
judicial decisions. Reverse or positive discrimination (seeaffirmative action)
has sometimes been adopted, and it has been suggested that in some circum-
stances (for example in the hiring of academics in the USA) it actually became
be an advantage to be a member of a hitherto disadvantaged group.
In non-democratic societies official discrimination is still common. In Iran
under the Khomeini regime, for example, many people were executed simply
for belonging to faiths other than the Shi‘ite form of Islam. In South Africa the
systematic incorporation of racial discrimination into the laws of a state with a
tradition of Christian and Western political values made it an object of
widespread suspicion and dislike, and the ultimate abolition ofapartheid
was to a large extent a reaction to this international opprobrium. It is an open
question whether the state can do much to preventde factodiscrimination in
private economic and social relations, because the legal and administrative
machinery has to be very complex, and discrimination can be extremely
difficult to prove. Where such control has been tried, notably in the USA, it
has only been partially successful.
Discrimination