C-411/05 Palacios de la Villa [2007] ECR I-8531

• Plaintiff’s contract of employment stipulated that he could be dismissed upon reaching the retirement age of 65. A British piece of legislation authorised this.

• Plaintiff argued that the dismissal should be declared void as it inhibited his right to non-discrimination as provided for by directive 200/78.

• The English court asked the ECJ whether the prohibition of any discrimination based on age in employment must be interpreted as meaning that it precluded national legislation.

• ECJ held that the legislation didn’t contradict the relevant directive which allowed a discriminatory policy to stand if objectively justified, as here where the legislation sought to encourage employers to take on elderly staff (contradicting the reasoning of ECJ in Mangold).

  • The ECJ made no reference to the general principal of non-discrimination. 

AG Mazak

• The international instruments and constitutional traditions referred to in Mangold enshrine the general principle of equal treatment, but that it was a bold proposition and a significant move to infer from that the existence of a specific principle prohibiting age discrimination.

• A general principle of equality potentially implies a prohibition of discrimination on any ground which may be deemed unacceptable, so that specific prohibitions constitute particular expressions of that general principle.

• However, it is quite a different matter to infer from the general principle of equality the existence of a prohibition of discrimination on a specific ground and the reasons for doing so are far from compelling.

  • Moreover, neither Article 13 EC nor Directive 2000/78 necessarily reflect an already existing prohibition of all the forms of discrimination to which they refer.

  • Rather, the underlying intention was in both cases to leave it to the Community legislature and the Member States to take appropriate action to that effect. 

RELATED CASES

• Werner Mangold v. Rüdiger Helm

• C-427/06 Bartsch