The New York Times reports that a court in Anhui has taken the unprecedented move of accepting a case filed by a prospective school teacher who says he was denied a job for being HIV positive:
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.”
