Scottish gipsies have been recognised as a distinct ethnic group in a landmark legal ruling.
Scottish gipsies have been recognised as a distinct ethnic group in a landmark legal ruling.
The move means that the travelling community is now entitled to the same legal protection as other ethnic minorities, as outlined by the Race Relations Act of 1976.
With their newly recognised status, they can bring claims of racial discrimination to employment tribunals, after an appeals tribunal in Aberdeen overturned a previous decision to the contrary.
Judge Nicol Hosie reconsidered the results of a previous hearing in March which found Scottish gipsies were not a distinct race.
The debate arose after Kenneth MacLennan, of Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, claimed his employers at the Gipsy Traveller Education and Information Project (GTEIP) had dismissed him for "taking a stance on behalf of gipsy travellers". Mr MacLennan worked for the organisation as a strategic co-ordinator until July last year.
The GTEIP argued that Mr MacLennan's complaint should be dismissed, because Scottish travellers were not a separate race and so could not claim racial discrimination.
However, after hearing evidence from a selection of academics and travelling-community historians, Mr Hosie concluded that Scottish gipsies were, in fact, a distinct ethnic community and must be treated as such under law.
Mr MacLennan's individual case will be decided at a hearing early next year.
The judgment of the tribunal, referred to testimony from Dr Colin Clark, a senior lecturer at Strathclyde University who has written extensively on the subject of ethnicity, racism and identity in relation to Roma gipsies.
Dr Clark told the tribunal: "The origins of the Scottish gipsy traveller population remain disputed, but they have their roots in a Celtic - and possibly pre-Celtic - nomad population in Scotland.
"Objectively, we can say that contemporary Scottish gipsy travellers in Scotland are part of a nomadic community that has endured for centuries throughout the whole of Scotland.
"There has been substantial Scottish gipsy traveller migration from Scotland and Britain since at least the period of the main Highland Clearances, if not before. In short, there is a long, shared history."
He added: "It is clear that Scottish gipsy travellers have long had awareness of self-identity and of difference from the settled population in both Britain and within Scotland itself."
The tribunal also heard evidence from siblings Shamus and Roseanna McPhee, both members of the Scottish gipsy community.
Mr McPhee, who was brought up in the Bobbin Mill Tinker Experiment - a site in Pitlochry granted for use to the travelling community in 1947 - pointed out that gipsies had been seen as a separate ethnic group during the Second World War, and were persecuted alongside the Jews.
Mr Hosie ruled: "Scottish gipsy travellers have ethnic origins', with reference in particular to the 1976 act, and they therefore enjoy the protection of the act."
