Defrenne v Sabena (No 2)
| Defrenne v Sabena (No 2) | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Court | European Court of Justice |
| Decided | 8 Apr 1976 |
| Citation(s) | (1976) Case 43/75, [1976] ECR 455, [1976] ICR 547, [1981] 1 All ER 122 |
| Keywords | |
| Equality, social, economic | |
Defrenne v Sabena (No 2) (1976) Case 43/75 is a foundational European Union law case, concerning direct effect and the European Social Charter in the European Union.
The case was championed by the Belgian lawyer Eliane Vogel-Polsky, who was responsible for much of the heavy involvement in sex discrimination law of the time by the European Court of Justice.
A woman named Gabrielle Defrenne worked as a flight attendant for the Belgian national airline Sabena. Under Belgian law, female flight attendants were obliged to retire at the age of 40, unlike their male counterparts. Defrenne had been forced to retire from Sabena in 1968. Defrenne complained that the lower pension rights this entailed violated her right to equal treatment on grounds of gender under article 119 of the Treaty of the European Community, (now of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) - prior to the Lisbon Treaty, this was article 141 TEC).
The European Court of Justice held that article 119 of the Treaty of the European Community was of such a character as to have horizontal direct effect, and therefore enforceable not merely between individuals and the government, but also between private parties. Article 157 TFEU (119 TEEC, 141 TEC) was invoked which stated "Each Member State shall ensure that the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for equal work or work of equal value is applied"
9. First, in the light of the different stages of the development of social legislation in the various member states, the aim of article 119 is to avoid a situation in which undertakings established in states which have actually implemented the principle of equal pay suffer a competitive disadvantage in intra-community competition as compared with undertakings established in states which have not yet eliminated discrimination against women workers as regards pay.
...
Wikipedia