Latest in Employment Law>Case Law>Ypourgos Esoterikon and anor v Kalliri [2017]
Ypourgos Esoterikon and anor v Kalliri [2017]
Published on: 26/10/2017
Issues Covered: Discrimination
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Legal Island
Legal Island
Background

The CJEU has ruled that a minimum height requirement of 1.7m (without shoes) to join the Greek police force could not be objectively justified. Ms Kalliri is 1.68m tall. Her application to join the police force schools in Greece was rejected because she failed to reach the minimum height requirement. She appealed and the case was referred to the ECJ.

The Court found that the requirement "... works to the disadvantage of a far greater number of women compared with men and that law does not appear to be either appropriate or necessary to achieve the legitimate objective that it pursues..."

The Greek Government submitted that the aim of the law at issue in the main proceedings was to enable the effective accomplishment of the task of the Greek police and that possession of certain particular physical attributes, such as being of a minimum height, is a necessary and appropriate condition for achieving that aim. The Court accepted that the concern to ensure the operational capacity and proper functioning of the police services constitutes a legitimate objective.

The Court accepted that certain functions might need police officers to be of a certain height but "... the fact remains that certain police functions, such as providing assistance to citizens or traffic control, do not clearly require the use of significant physical force ... Furthermore, even if all the functions carried out by the Greek police required a particular physical aptitude, it would not appear that such an aptitude is necessarily connected with being of a certain minimum height and that shorter persons naturally lack that aptitude."
http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/EUECJ/2017/C40916.html

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Disclaimer The information in this article is provided as part of Legal Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article. This article is correct at 26/10/2017