Keywords
Summary

Keywords

++++

1. Social policy ° Men and women workers ° Access to employment and working conditions ° Equal treatment ° Directive 76/207 ° Discriminatory dismissal ° Choice of sanctions left to the Member States ° Award of compensation ° Need for adequate compensation ° Ceiling fixed and payment of any interest excluded ° Not permissible

(Council Directive 76/207, Arts 5(1) and 6)

2. Social policy ° Men and women workers ° Access to employment and working conditions ° Equal treatment ° Directive 76/207 ° Article 6 ° Effect on relationships between the State and individuals ° State as employer

(Council Directive 76/207, Art. 6)

Summary

1. Although Directive 76/207, the purpose of which is to put into effect in the Member States the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards the various aspects of employment, in particular working conditions, including the conditions governing dismissal, leaves Member States, when providing a remedy for breach of the prohibition against discrimination, free to choose between the different solutions suitable for achieving the objective of the directive, it nevertheless entails that if financial compensation is to be awarded where there has been discriminatory dismissal in breach of Article 5(1), such compensation must be adequate, in that it must enable the loss and damage actually sustained as a result of the discriminatory dismissal to be made good in full in accordance with the applicable national rules.

Accordingly, the interpretation of Article 6 of Directive 76/207 must be that reparation of the loss and damage sustained by a person injured as a result of discriminatory dismissal may not be limited to an upper limit fixed a priori or by excluding an award of interest to compensate for the loss sustained by the recipient of the compensation as a result of the effluxion of time until the capital sum awarded is actually paid.

2. A person who has been injured as a result of discriminatory dismissal may rely on the provisions of Article 6 of Directive 76/207 as against an authority of the State acting in its capacity as an employer in order to set aside a national provision which imposes limits on the amount of compensation recoverable by way of reparation.

The right of a State to choose among several possible means of achieving the objectives of a directive does not exclude the possibility for individuals of enforcing before national courts rights whose content can be determined sufficiently precisely on the basis of the provisions of the directive alone.