An essential service must provide reasonable support where language, disability or form of technological access creates a material barrier.
Art. 36 · equal protection without forced assimilation
Equality and non-discrimination
For the proposed Constitution, equality does not mean pretending that everyone starts from the same position. The Constitution prohibits arbitrary discrimination and also permits proportionate measures to remove real inequalities.
Proposed Constitution · reference text · not promulgatedIn brief
A right is not an abstract promise: it constrains concrete decisions.
The protection covers a broad list of personal and social characteristics, including origin, nationality, race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, economic condition, migration status, religion, political opinion, language and legitimate form of technological access. Minorities have the right to preserve culture, religion and language without coercive assimilation.
Equality before the law and in lived experience
Applying the same rule to everyone can preserve exclusion when the means of access itself prevents certain people from participating. The Constitution requires equal protection and permits adaptations and proportionate measures to remove substantive inequality.
This is especially relevant in digital services: a single authentication method, language, device or format can create indirect exclusion even without discriminatory intent.
Protection of minorities without creating a hierarchy among people
People belonging to minorities may enjoy their culture, profess their religion and use their language individually or in community. No one is required to declare minority membership. At the same time, cultural identity does not authorise violating another person's dignity, equality or fundamental rights.
What this means for you
Practical consequences
Automated or registry-based criteria must be auditable when they produce unequal treatment of groups.
A measure intended to correct real inequality may be legitimate if it is proportionate and connected to the problem it is designed to address.
Limits and institutional honesty
What this safeguard does not authorise
Equality does not require identical treatment in materially different situations.
Protection of one group does not permit arbitrary discrimination against another group or the erasure of individual rights.
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