Brussels, 19/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - Obesity can be considered a “disability” and therefore be protected from discrimination by virtue of the principle of equal treatment in employment and occupation, the Court of Justice of the EU stated in a verdict returned on Thursday 18 December (case C-354/13).
Obesity is not included as such in the treaties or secondary legislation of the EU in the field of employment and occupation as a condition which can lead to discrimination. This means that neither the directive on equal treatment in employment and occupation (2000/78/EC) nor the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU lists it as a possible grounds for discrimination. The Court finds that there is no call to extend the scope of application of the former, whilst the latter does not apply to a situation of this kind.
However, the directive in question prohibits discrimination on the basis of a “disability”. As the origin of a disability is irrelevant in the eyes of the law, the Court found that obesity could be covered by the notion of “disability” once the state of obesity of a worker leads to a physical, mental or psychological limitations preventing him or her from fully participating in professional life on an equal footing with other workers over a long period of time. This means that, as for all other individuals living with a disability, employers will be obliged to adopt “reasonable measures” to adapt to the needs of workers whose obesity has the effect of disabling them, unless such measures constitute a “disproportionate burden”.
Up to this point of its verdict, the Court followed the line of argument of Advocate General Niilo Jääskinen to the letter. However, he went further in his conclusions (EUROPE 11126), proposing to define the degree of obesity which would make participation in professional life very difficult. He found that only extreme, severe or morbid obesity should be covered, defined on the basis of the body mass index (BMI). The European judges declined to take this step, deciding to leave it up to the national legal systems to determine, on a case-by-case basis, when obesity becomes “disability”. (JK)