In Rare Move, China Court to Hear H.I.V. Case

BEIJING — In what appears to be a
first for China’s legal system, a
court in Anhui Province has agreed
to hear a complaint by a
prospective schoolteacher that he
was illegally denied a job because
he is H.I.V. positive, the man ’s
lawyer said Tuesday.
The unidentified man, said to be in
his early 20s, brought the case
under a 2006 national regulation
that prohibits job discrimination
against people with H.I.V., his
lawyer, Zheng Jineng, said in a
telephone interview from Hefei, the
provincial capital.
Mr. Zheng said the case would be
heard by a district court in Anqing.
The plaintiff contends that he
passed a written test and
interviews for a teaching job there,
but that the city education bureau
rejected him after a physical
examination showed he was
infected with H.I.V., the virus that
causes AIDS.
“In the past on sensitive cases like
this, the court would be very
reluctant to accept the case, ” Mr.
Zheng said. “But this time they
accepted it smoothly and quickly.
That means the legal system in
China is making progress. ”
H.I.V.-positive Chinese suffered
official and public discrimination for
years after the disease first
surfaced in the country in 1986.
Infected students were often
forced to leave school and workers
were shunted from their jobs.
More recently, the national
government has taken a tolerant
approach, offering free
antiretroviral drugs and prenatal
care to many people who are H.I.V.
positive, as well as screening for
those who suspect that they might
be. Many migrants remain unable
to receive the services, however,
because they lack the appropriate
residence papers.
The National People’s Congress,
China’s legislature, has approved a
law that bans employers from
discriminating against job applicants
with certain kinds of communicable
diseases, as chosen by state
regulators. But the basis for the
Anhui lawsuit is a regulation issued
in March 2006 by the State Council,
the government ’s senior
management body, which states
that “no institution or individual
shall discriminate against people
living with H.I.V., AIDS patients and
their relatives. ”
More than four years later, no court
had placed an H.I.V. discrimination
case on its docket until Monday ’s
decision, said Yu Fangqiang, the
chief coordinator for Yirenping, a
Beijing-based civil-rights advocacy
group involved in the Anhui case.
The group paid the court fee to file
the lawsuit, and Mr. Zheng waived
his legal fees for the case.
Mr. Yu said he agreed with Mr.
Zheng that the court ’s acceptance
of the discrimination lawsuit was a
sign of changing legal standards.
But he added that news media
coverage had probably played a
crucial role in the court ’s decision,
which had been delayed until the
Chinese journal Legal Daily ran an
article about the case.
The newspaper, he said, “is a must-
read for a lot of people in the legal
system. I think the media played a
role in the court accepting this
case. ”
Yirenping, the rights group, had
filed as many as 15 other lawsuits
similar to the Anhui complaint in
the past, Mr. Yu said, but courts
uniformly rejected them. Many
other H.I.V.-positive citizens
approached the organization for
advice on suing, but later dropped
the idea for fear that their
confidentiality would be
compromised, he said.
But the Anhui plaintiff, he said, was
determined to pursue a lawsuit.
“He was born to a poor family in
the countryside,” Mr. Yu said, “and
a job as a teacher means a lot to
him — stable pay and a decent
job.