Brussels, 15/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - On 15 January (case C-176/12), the Court of Justice ruled that Article 27 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU) on the right of workers to information and consultation does not suffice in itself to confer on individuals a right which may be invoked in order to disapply a national provision that is contrary to EU law. The same assessment applies, it explains, when this article is combined with the provisions of EU law or national law which express that right more specifically.
The Court was responding to the French Cour de cassation, to which a case had been referred in which union associations argued that French legislation transposing Directive 2002/14 (workers' rights information and consultation) ran counter to Article 27 of the Charter and to the directive itself. Whereas this directive makes staff or union representation obligatory within a company above a certain threshold level of staff numbers and makes it impossible to exclude certain categories of personnel from the calculation, the French legislation excludes certain categories of workers, such as apprentices, holders of an employment-initiative contract, etc, from the calculation of staff numbers. Under these conditions, the French court was asking whether Article 27 of the Charter, as giving more specific expression in the provisions of Directive 2002/14, can be relied upon in a dispute between individuals in order to preclude the application of the national implementing measure which is contrary to EU law.
In its ruling, the Court confirms that the provisions of the directive prohibited the exclusion of certain categories of employees from the calculation of the staff numbers of an undertaking, as such an exclusion results in depriving employees of the rights granted under the directive and renders that directive ineffective. However, as this case has to do with a dispute between private parties - the Association de médiation sociale (AMS) on the one hand, and a union representative appointed and supported by his organisation on the other - the union associations cannot rely on the provisions of the directive as such against AMS and that, furthermore, the national statute cannot be interpreted in conformity with the directive. The Court goes on to state that Article 27 of the Charter does not by itself suffice to confer on individuals a right which they may invoke as such to disapply the national provision in question, as the ban on excluding certain categories of staff from the calculation of the number of staff members of the undertaking cannot be deduced, as a directly applicable rule of law, from the wording of the article. The same assessment would be made in the event of a combination of this article with the provisions of Directive 2002/14, the Court concludes. (FG/transl.fl)