## Facts

- Mariantonia Ceschini applied for a competitive examination for a technical/managerial position in the fire-prevention service of the Autonomous Province of Trento.
- She was excluded because she did not satisfy a statutory minimum-height requirement.
- The challenged rule required, without distinction between men and women, a minimum height of 1.65 meters for access to certain technical/managerial positions in the service.
- Ceschini and the Provincial Equal Opportunities Commission brought a civil action contesting the exclusion.
- The pretore (first-instance civil judge) of Trento referred a question of constitutionality, asserting the requirement had a disparate impact on women because it exceeded average female height and excluded many female candidates.
- The Province argued the constitutional question was inadmissible and defended the height requirement as job-related and tied to safety.

## Issues

1. Whether an undifferentiated minimum-height requirement for access to technical/managerial fire-prevention posts violates constitutional equality guarantees and protections for women workers.
2. Whether a facially neutral physical criterion that disproportionately excludes women constitutes indirect sex discrimination absent sufficient job-related justification.
3. Whether the constitutional question was inadmissible based on alleged defects in the referring court’s jurisdiction.

## Decision

- The Constitutional Court rejected the Province’s inadmissibility objections, holding constitutional review is autonomous from the underlying case and defects in the a quo proceedings are reviewed only when a manifest lack of jurisdiction is evident.
- The Court declared unconstitutional the provincial provision insofar as it imposed, without differentiation between men and women, a minimum height of 1.65 meters as an access requirement for the specified positions.
- The Court held the rule produced indirect discrimination against women and was incompatible with constitutional equality and gender-equality-in-employment guarantees.
- The Court found the Province had not shown that a uniform 1.65 m threshold was necessary for the positions at issue, as opposed to alternative or differentiated fitness measures.

## Legal Principles

- Constitutional equality prohibits both direct sex classifications and facially neutral requirements that disproportionately disadvantage women, unless objectively and proportionately justified.
- A uniform rule can be substantively unequal when it ignores relevant empirical differences and foreseeably excludes a protected group from employment opportunities.
- Job-related physical requirements may be permissible only if strictly connected to the tasks and structured to avoid disproportionate burdens on one sex absent necessity.
- In incidental constitutional review, challenges to the validity of the underlying proceedings generally do not defeat admissibility unless a manifest jurisdictional defect is shown.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated the uniform 1.65-meter height requirement for certain provincial fire-prevention technical/managerial posts because, lacking adequate task-based justification, it functioned as indirect sex discrimination that violated constitutional commitments to equality and equal access to work.


Ceschini v. Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Corte Cost., sent. n. 163 (It. 1993)