The Fire Services Department turned down two qualified job applicants in separate cases because parents of the men suffered from mental illness, two District Court writs allege.
It had been imputed that the two men were also mentally ill and they had been 'unlawfully discriminated against' on those grounds, the writs claim.
In one case, a qualified ambulance officer whose mother suffered from schizophrenia was rejected for a job on the grounds of 'public safety', according to the writ lodged yesterday.
The Tseung Kwan O man had passed all the Fire Services Department recruitment procedures for an ambulance officer, including a physical check in November 1997 and an interview in December.
Then in February, he attended the Government Medical Examination Board.
The board stated in its report to the department that the man's mother suffered from schizophrenia.
