Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Social policy - Men and women - Access to employment and working conditions in the exercise of activities in a self-employed capacity - Equal treatment - Indirect discrimination - Assessment criteria - Separate assessment of each of the key conditions governing the exercise of a professional activity - Need for significant data

(Council Directives 76/207 and 86/613)

2. Social policy - Men and women - Discrimination linked to social protection measures adopted by the Member States - Measures designed to ensure sound management of public expenditure - Justification - Conditions

3. Social policy - Men and women - Equal pay - Sale price of a medical practice - Treatment as equivalent to a retirement pension for an employed person - Not included

Summary

1. In order to determine whether indirect discrimination on grounds of sex exists, Directive 76/207 on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions and Directive 86/613 on the application of the principle of equal treatment between men and women engaged in an activity, including agriculture, in a self-employed capacity, and on the protection of self-employed women during pregnancy and motherhood must be interpreted as requiring a separate assessment to be made of each of the key conditions governing the exercise of a professional activity laid down in specified provisions, in so far as those key elements constitute in themselves specific measures based on their own criteria of application and affecting a significant number of persons belonging to a determined category.

With regard to this latter condition, a situation may reveal a prima facie case of indirect discrimination only if the statistics describing that situation are valid, that is to say, if they cover enough individuals, do not illustrate purely fortuitous or short-term phenomena, and appear, in general, to be significant.

( see paras 33, 36 and operative part 1 )

2. While budgetary considerations cannot, within the context of social protection measures adopted by the Member States, in themselves justify discrimination between workers on grounds of sex, measures designed to ensure sound management of public expenditure on specialised medical care and to guarantee people's access to such care may be justified if they meet a legitimate objective of social policy, are appropriate to attain that objective, and are necessary to that end.

( see para. 42 and operative part 2 )

3. The price which a doctor may receive for goodwill when he or she ceases activity on reaching retirement age cannot, in an assessment as to whether there is discrimination between workers based on sex, be treated as equivalent to the retirement pension of an employed worker. The transfer of goodwill, which is an incorporeal element of a medical practice, is not necessarily linked to the age of the transferor and may occur at any time, whereas a pension is obtained only at a certain age and subject to a certain period of activity and payment of a specific amount of contributions. Furthermore, it is the person taking over the practice who pays the purchase price and not those who normally provide the doctor's remuneration, whether these be his or her patients, the State, or the health insurance body.

( see paras 45-46 and operative part 3 )