Belgium has expanded its Anti-Discrimination Act to
cover individuals' ‘state of health', which means
their past medical history is now covered.
Belgium has prohibited discrimination based on an
individual's ‘current or future state of health'
since 2007. On 7 July 2022, a bill was passed which broadens this.
The concept of ‘current or future state of health' is
replaced by ‘state of health', meaning that an
individual's past state of health
is now also protected by the Anti-Discrimination Act.
Before this amendment, the 2007 Anti-Discrimination Act only
prohibited discrimination on the basis of ‘present or future
state of health'. This implied that people could, in
principle, be discriminated against on the basis of a past illness
from which they were now cured or in remission. For example, a
person who had had cancer in the past and was denied a job because
the employer feared s/he would relapse was not protected.
