Case C‑178/15

Alicja Sobczyszyn

v

Szkoła Podstawowa w Rzeplinie

(Request for a preliminary ruling

from the Sąd Rejonowy dla Wrocławia-Śródmieścia we Wrocławiu X Wydział Pracy i Ubezpieczeń Społecznych)

‛Reference for a preliminary ruling — Organisation of working time — Directive 2003/88/EC — Right to paid annual leave — Teachers — Convalescence leave — Annual leave coinciding with convalescence leave — Right to take the annual leave in another period’

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Tenth Chamber), 30 June 2016

1. Social policy — Protection of the safety and health of workers — Organisation of working time — Right to paid annual leave — Particularly important principle of EU social law

   (Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 31(2); European Parliament and Council Directive 2003/88, Art. 7(1))

2. Social policy — Protection of the safety and health of workers — Organisation of working time — Right to paid annual leave — Worker on convalescence leave during the period of annual leave — National provisions refusing that worker the right to take his paid annual leave in a subsequent period — Purpose of the right to convalescence leave different from that of the right to annual leave — Verification by the national court

   (European Parliament and Council Directive 2003/88, Art. 7)

1.  See the text of the decision.

   (see paras 19-21)

2.  Article 7(1) of Directive 2003/88 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time must be interpreted as precluding national legislation or a national practice under which a worker who is on convalescence leave, granted in accordance with national law, during the period of annual leave scheduled in the leave roster of the establishment where he is employed may be refused, at the end of his convalescence leave, the right to take his paid annual leave in a subsequent period, provided that the purpose of the right to convalescence leave is different from that of the right to annual leave, a matter which is for the national court to determine.

   Whilst it is ultimately for the national court, which alone has jurisdiction to interpret national legislation, to decide whether the purpose of convalescence leave is different from that of paid annual leave defined in Article 7 of Directive 2003/88, as interpreted by the Court, the latter, which is called upon to provide the national court with a useful answer for the purpose of deciding the case brought before it, may provide it, for this purpose, with guidance based on all the material supplied by it, and in particular on the grounds of the order for reference.

   The fact that national law states that convalescence leave is granted ‘in order to follow a course of treatment prescribed by a doctor’, that it is the panel doctor treating the teacher who decides on the ‘need to grant him convalescence leave for the purpose of the prescribed treatment’ and that, two weeks before the end of that leave, the teacher must go for an examination in order to check that there are no contraindications against his resuming work are such as to support the proposition that the convalescence leave has the objective of improving the state of health of the workers who are prescribed it and, unlike the paid annual leave laid down in Article 7(1) of Directive 2003/88, is not intended to grant those workers a period of relaxation and leisure since they must follow a course of treatment prescribed by a doctor.

   Should the referring court have to conclude that the objectives do differ, the national legislation must lay down an obligation on the employer to grant the worker concerned a different period of annual leave proposed by him which is compatible with any overriding reasons relating to the interests of the employer, without excluding in advance the possibility that that period may fall outside the reference period for the annual leave in question.

   (see paras 28-30, 32, 34, operative part)