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1 BvL 8/08 (Bundesverfassungsgericht)

Employees of state hospitals in Hamburg were granted the right in 1995 to continued employment in case of privatization of the hospitals. In 2000, the cleaning staff were spun off into a separate company which was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the state hospitals. Upon privatization in 2005, the right to continued employment was applied only to those employees employed by the state hospitals, not those employed by the wholly-owned subsidiary company.

1 BvR 300/02 Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court)

The lower court issued an expedited injunction against the petitioner. The petitioner filed, inter alia, a constitutional complaint appealing the injunction, which prohibited him from approaching or contacting his partner and from re-entering the flat he shared with her to protect her from his domestic violence. The Court did not allow the constitutional complaint, inter alia, on the grounds that the injunction did not breach the complainant’s constitutional rights.

1 BvR 684/14 Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court)

The 51-year-old claimant, a female employee, argued that the age limit on her employer’s pension fund discriminated against her based on, among other things, her gender, . The age limit only provided for pension claims for employees who were not older than 50 at the beginning of their employment. However, the claimant had stopped working after the birth of her child and did not return to the work force until she was 51. Her child was already 25 years old at that time and had fully completed his vocational training.

1 BvR 774/02 Bundesverfassungsgericht

The Court held that it was unconstitutional to require an attorney without earnings to continue to make compulsory pension contributions during time taken off to care for children (up to the age of three years). The Court found that requiring such compulsory pension contributions was a breach of the right to equal treatment enshrined in the German constitution because it disproportionately affected women, who are the parent taking time off to care for small children in the vast majority of cases.

15 Sa 517/08 Landesarbeitsgericht Berlin-Brandenburg (Employment Court of Berlin-Brandenburg)

The claimant sued her employer on the grounds of discrimination after a male colleague received a promotion to a management role she had hoped for. The Court decided for the claimant, accepting statistical evidence showing that, while the majority of employees of the employer (69%) were women, no women were represented on the three most senior management levels. This was the first decision of a court accepting such statistical evidence of discrimination. This decision is now only available via subscription service.

8 AZR 1012/08 Bundesarbeitsgericht

This appellate decision overruled the Berlin-Brandenburg Labor Court’s (Landesarbeitsgericht Berlin-Brandenburg) 2008 decision 15 Sa 517/08 which held that the plaintiff was discriminated against in the course of her employment on the basis of her gender. She sued her employer in trial labor court in Berlin on the grounds of discrimination after a male colleague received a promotion to a management role that she had hoped for and for which she considered herself to be equally qualified.

8 AZR 488/19 Federal Labor Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht)

The claimant, a female employee, exercised her right under the Transparency in Wage Structures Act (available here: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/entgtranspg/BJNR215210017.html) to obtain information from her employer about the average salary in the group of colleagues who performed the same or equivalent work as she did as a head of department. She found that her compensation was below average.

AZ: 500DS 501JS 15031/15

In this case a doctor was held criminally liable under section 219a of the Criminal Code for publishing information about abortion services on the her website. The doctor argued that she was not "advertising" abortion (which is prohibited by law under section 219a) but merely providing information on abortions. The court disagreed, holding that the downloadable PDF on the doctor's website that contained information about abortions fell under the prohibited conduct of section 219a.

BVerwG 6 C 25.12 Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court)

The Court rejected the appeal and upheld the decision of the lower court that a female Muslim high school student was not exempt from compulsory swimming lessons on the grounds of her religion. In the circumstances, there was not sufficient reason to undermine compulsory school attendance of children. The girl's parents had applied to the school for an exemption from swimming lessons on the grounds that Islamic dress custom did not allow their daughter to participate in co-educational swimming lessons.

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