Non-discrimination

The applicant, who is disabled (100% lower limbs disability and vesicorectal disorders), was a candidate for filling the post of notary at the town of Stavroupoli, Xanthi. The competition, that took place at the building of the National School for Judges at Thessaloniki, included written exams on 5 different subjects in a period of 3 days. Each examination lasted 4 hours. The applicant informed in due time the competition’s committee of her disability. During the first exam the applicant filed a statement of objection complaining that: a) there was no toilet accessible to disabled persons at the building, b) it was harder for her to cope with 8 hours of written exams each day, c) she had to move away from her suitably equipped home at Xanthi for 5 days in order to compete. Her objection was never officially answered and the applicant came second in the competition. Finally, the applicant lodged a complaint (application for annulment) against the competition’s results before the Council of State.

The Council of State found that, according to the combined interpretation of art. 21 par. 2, 3 and 6 of the Constitution and the relevant provisions of Directive 2000/78/EC, the State has a special positive duty to provide reasonable accommodation for disabled persons in public competitions, in order for them to compete on an equal footing with non-disabled candidates. However, in the absence of specific state legislation on the issue, each competition’s committee has the duty to take all proper measures for the reasonable accommodation of disabled candidates. In this case the Court found that, given the nature of the candidate’s disability, the lack of toilet for disabled persons was by itself enough to undermine her capacity to perform according to her abilities and, thus, annulled the competition and ordered the competition’s committee to repeat the exams taking all appropriate measures to enable the candidate to have access to adequate facilities.

The case falls within the scope of the Charter pursuant to Article 51(1) therein as it concerns the interpetation of the national law implementing the EU equality and non-discriminaiton directives in the area of access to the profession of public notary.

The judgment at hand helped raise awareness for the reasonable accommodation of disabled candidates in all public competitions, but there hasn’t been any legislative initiative to provide for specific rules.