Arguably, the ‘Western’ (especially Western European) anti-discrimination has moved from a ‘formal’ emphasis on antidiscrimination and elimination of ‘different treatment’, to ‘positive duties’ and a ‘substantive’ or ‘transformative’ understanding of equality. The paper argues that the development in the post-communist states was opposite to the West – equality was understood as socio-economic levelling during the state socialist period, and antidiscrimination law was only introduced subsequently, in the process of EU accession. This means that antidiscrimination law has been double disadvantaged – it has no history to draw on, and, moreover, equality law is discredited as it is identified as a communist project.
The paper argues that notwithstanding these obstacles, constitutional and statutory antidiscrimination rights are a crucial site where the underlying understandings of (in)equality can be challenged and developed.
