Köbler v Republik Österreich [2003] 3 CMLR 28

• Austria allowed University professors to work past age of 60 if they had worked for at least 15 years in Austrian universities.

• Plaintiff had worked over 15 years in universities but sometimes it was in other EC member states.

• It was held that

  1. Where the highest national court makes a ruling in breach of EC law the state will have to pay the individual damaged or harmed by the failure of the court to implement the relevant law, provided the national court with the relevant competence deems it to be a serious enough breach. In determining this, it must be determined whether the breach was “manifest” (clear) to the court that it was breaching EC law.

  2. That the Austrian law inhibited the free movement of workers and therefore was to be disapplied.

  3. In this case the breach was not manifest and therefore no liability applied. 

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