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In this study, an assessment model is developed to guide courts in deciding equal treatment cases. Such a model appears to be indispensable, since relevant equality provisions often do not offer much guidance as to the assessment of unequal treatment. This lack of guidance may lead to diverging approaches and outcomes, which is undesirable from the perspective of equality and legal certainty. The use of the assessment model developed in this study will improve judicial reasoning and enhance the legitimacy of equal treatment case law. The general assessment model developed in this study is based on theoretical research after the standards that should be used in assessing cases against the principle of equal treatment, supplemented by an elaborate comparative analysis of the equal treatment case law in various legal systems. The result of this approach is the design of an assessment model that is both theoretically sound and workable in practice. The Dutch edition of this book has been awarded with the Erasmus Study Prize 2003, the Max van der Stoel Human Rights Prize and the Constitutional Law Prize

In this study, a general model is developed for judicial assessment of equal treatment cases. The model is based on theoretical research after the standards that should be used in assessing cases against the general principle of equal treatment, supplemented by an elaborate comparative analysis of the equal treatment case law in various legal systems. The result of this approach is an assessment model that is both theoretically sound and workable in practice. The use of the model by the courts will improve judicial reasoning and enhance the legitimacy of equal treatment case law.

Preferential policies, though they are not required by justice, are not seriously unjust; the system from which they depart is already unjust. Deliberate barriers against admitting blacks or women, however, had to be abolished--without explicit barriers discrimination could be conscious or unconscious (motivationally), thus giving support to a self-conscious effort to act impartially. The realization that a social system may continue to deny different races or sexes equal opportunity & equal access to desirable positions even after such barriers have been lifted became evident, since society automatically provides different rewards for different groups. The question is raised: How great is a social contribution to injustice, to what extent is it due to social causes not involving injustice, or to causes which are not social but biological? Can unjustly caused disadvantages be overcome by special programs of preparatory or remedial training? What grounds are to be used in assigning individuals to desirable positions? People less qualified, for whatever reason could be compensated for this disadvantage by having suitably different standards for these different groups. Obviously, this would not be a stable position. Compensatory procedures would then have to be applied in individual bases. The concept of differences advocated by liberals is too weak to combat inequalities dispensed by nature & ordinary workings of the social system. In most societies rewards are a function of demand, & many of the human characteristics most in demand result from gifts & talents. If racial & sexual injustice were reduced we would still be left with the injustice of the smart & the dumb; "at present we do not have a method of divorcing professional status from social esteem & economic reward. In the absence of this, what remains is the familiar task of balancing liberty against equality." S. Cummings.