6 - Prohibitions against discrimination in the private sphere: does legislation build on a consistent foundation?

Summary

Introduction

Our general hypothesis is that existing restrictions on the access of insurance companies to genetic information will hardly prove possible to sustain in their entirety in the long term. The decisive reason why this is so is that, as became clear in chapter 5, these regulations will be unable to fulfil their intended purpose. At first sight it might seem as if this in itself would suffice to verify the hypothesis we have advanced. However, a closer examination indicates that some regulations remain in force even though they fail to fulfil their intended purposes. One major reason for this may be that the regulations are part of a larger system building on a consistent foundation and there is a general idea that everything possible should be done to maintain the unified character of this regulatory system.

As an example of a system of regulations constructed on a fairly consistent basis, we may cite the legislation in many countries covering income tax. Although this legislation is unable to satisfy the underlying fiscal intention in certain respects (for example, where mutual favours are concerned), the regulations remain unchanged out of regard for the consistency of the body of regulations as a whole. In contrast, we could cite the regulatory framework for the taxation of wealth, where the general liability to pay taxes is widely curtailed by exemptions motivated by a variety of reasons.