For many persons with disabilities, their family and social network play an indispensable role in ensuring their participation in society and enjoyment of human rights. This applies clearly to the care of parents for their children with disabilities. Accordingly, the preamble to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) indicates that ‘persons with disabilities and their family members should receive the necessary protection and assistance to enable families to contribute towards the full and equal enjoyment of the rights of persons with disabilities’ ((para x), see also Article 23 CRPD). Parents in this situation might encounter obstacles in the workplace, for example, when their caregiving obligations take place during working hours. A case before the Court of Justice of the EU – Bervidi, dated 11 September 2025 – raised the question to what extent parents who are carers for their children with disabilities can invoke (1) the prohibition against indirect discrimination, and (2) reasonable accommodation to enable this care.

Facts and relevance

Bervidi concerned a parent, G.L., who was a caregiver for her minor child ‘with extensive and comprehensive needs arising from disability’ (para 20). She had asked her employer for a permanent appointment with fixed working hours which would enable her to meet her child’s care needs, which included a programme at a fixed time in the afternoon. An Italian court considering the case asked the Court of Justice whether the prohibition of indirect discrimination (art. 2.2.b) and the provisions on reasonable accommodation (art. 2.2.b and 5) in the Employment Equality Directive applied to G.L., herself not a person with a disability.

The Court of Justice had already found that the prohibition of discrimination applies when the alleged discrimination occurs on the basis of disability, regardless of whether the alleged victim is themselves a person with a disability (i.e., discrimination by association). In Coleman, it had held that the protection against direct discrimination and harassment apply to the parent of a child with a disability when the discrimination is based on her child’s disability. In the CHEZ case, interpreting the Race Equality Directive, the Court had considered that indirect discrimination by association was prohibited under that Directive. However, the Coleman judgment indicated that reasonable accommodation was confined to persons with a disability (at para 39).

Scholars such as Lisa Waddington and Andrea Broderick had criticised the decision for not complying with the requirements of the CRPD. The CRPD Committee had considered all forms of discrimination by association to be prohibited by the CRPD (e.g., in its General Comment on equality and non-discrimination, para 17; and in its decision in Bellini v. Italy). Moreover, in reaching this conclusion, the Court of Justice overlooked the vital role of reasonable accommodations in families where someone has a disability, regardless of which person in the family they are provided to.

The judgment

The Court in Bervidi, firstly, indicated that the Employment Equality Directive should be read in light of the CRPD, including its Article 7 on the rights of children with disabilities, and Articles 24 and 26 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU on the rights of the child and of persons with disabilities. Reaffirming its prior decision in CHEZ, the Court confirmed that indirect discrimination by association based on disability is prohibited (para 40-66). Referring to the rights of children and persons with disabilities, case law from the European Court of Human Rights, and the views of the CRPD Committee, it concluded that this prohibition applies to employees discriminated against because of their assistance in their child (with a disability)’s access to the required care.

Concerning reasonable accommodation, the Court’s reliance on those same sources led it to consider that ‘the employee must be able to provide, to his or her child who has a disability, the assistance that that child requires, which implies an obligation, on the employer, to adapt the working conditions of that employee’ (para 73). The Court explained its seeming change in position by indicating that this question had not been presented in Coleman and that the Charter and CRPD at that time were not yet binding for the EU (para 69-70). Interestingly, it also considered this finding necessary for the effectiveness of the prohibition of indirect discrimination by association (para. 74; see also this author’s previous post on the connection between reasonable accommodation and indirect discrimination in this respect).

A welcome clarification

In Bervidi, the Court further consolidates the effective protection against discrimination based on disability. On indirect discrimination, the judgment reaffirms its prior case law. By centring the CRPD and the rights of children with disabilities in its analysis, the Court was led to the application of reasonable accommodation by association, simultaneously recognizing the interaction between care obligations and work. This provides both a welcome further alignment with the CRPD and the CRPD Committee’s practice, and a more accurate reflection of the interaction between caring obligations in private life and equal access to the workplace (see, by contrast, case C-363/12). This contextualised view of the worker can also be seen in cases concerning sex equality, such as Maïstrellis (para 45) and is prominently present in the Work Life Balance Directive referred to by the Advocate General in his opinion (para 47). Accordingly, the judgment leads to a logical and welcome clarification within EU anti-discrimination law.