The Court held that it was in breach of the right to equal treatment enshrined in the German constitution that periods of maternity leave (which affects women only) were not counted towards certain pension benefits whereas periods of sick leave (which affects both men and women) were. English translation of 1 BvR 1409/10 available here.)
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.
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.
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.
The Court found a law that only required men, and not women, to serve as firefighters, or alternatively, required men to pay a fire service levy, was discriminatory and violated the ECHR.
Der Gerichtshof stellte fest, dass ein Gesetz, das nur Männer und nicht Frauen zum Feuerwehrdienst verpflichtete bzw. von Männern die Zahlung einer Feuerwehrgebühr verlangte, diskriminierend war und gegen die EMRK verstieß.
The plaintiff, an unmarried father, took off six months from work to take care of the child while the child’s mother was working for which he demanded “maternity” leave payments for from the defendant, the relevant sickness fund. The defendant refused to pay. The German lower social court decided that the legislation only permitted maternity leave and not paternity leave. On appeal, the German state social court involved the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) in order to interpret Directive 76/207 with respect to the raised issue.
