THE RIGHT TO STAY DISCONNECTED: A CONSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF EMERGING LABOUR RIGHTS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

Abstract

The digitalisation of the workplace has fundamentally transformed the nature of employment, allowing employer and employee to remain connected well beyond conventional working hours. While digital technology has undoubtedly increased efficiency, it has simultaneously blurred the line separating professional from personal life, normalising extended work hours, uncompensated labour and mounting mental health concern. In response, the right to disconnect has emerged as a contemporary labour right directed at protecting workers from digital overreach. This paper undertakes a legal review of the right to disconnect, tracing its origin, statutory recognition and comparative legislative treatment across jurisdictions including France, Australia, Portugal and Belgium. It analyses the constitutional and labour law principle capable of underpinning recognition of this right within the Indian legal framework specifically, situating the right within Article 21's guarantee of life, dignity, health and privacy, within Article 14's guarantee of equality, and within Article 19(1)(g)'s protection of occupational liberty, read alongside the Directive Principles of State Policy. The paper argues that although Indian courts have not yet been asked to adjudicate the right to disconnect directly, its constitutional foundation is considerably stronger than the current absence of statutory recognition suggests, and it examines the private member's bills successive legislators have introduced without success, before proposing a framework capable of reconciling worker wellbeing with the economic realities of a developing economy substantially dependent on the international market.