Considerations on the Juridical Protection for Workers with Disabilities in the perspective of Italian Civil Law

In the Italian legal system, the discrimination against persons with disabilities in the employment field has been eliminated with greater delay compared to other hypotheses of discrimination. Although the Italian Constitution, promulgated in 1948, establishes certain fundamental principles regarding the rights of the disabled, in Italian civil law the protection of the disabled becomes effective, both in the public employment and in private work, only since the nineties of the last century, thanks to the debate within civil society and to the interventions of the supranational systems. In this perspective, the supranational protection of the persons with disabilities records in recent times a considerable acceleration that confirms, in the specific field of work, the universal imperative and the universal promotion of human rights. Furthermore, in the context of the integration between the Italian legal system and the European legal system, the protection for persons with disabilities at the community level is fundamental to understand the effective protection these persons enjoy in the Italian legal system. The progressive extension and the continuous adaptation of the remedies proposed in the protection of the disabled have represented the sector, in which, with paradigmatic clarity, the principle of equality, always operating as a cardinal principle of Italian civilization, has been transformed from a principle of equality “in front of” the law in the principle of equality “of the law”, playing the role of limiting any possible arbitrariness of legislator. Italian legislator is therefore required to observe the criterion of reasonableness and not to introduce unequal treatment between all persons with disabilities, both citizens and non-citizens.