Luxembourg, 24/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Court of Justice has delivered its Mangold judgment, in which it invalidates a provision in the German law on part-time work and fixed-term contracts (known as the TzBfG) of 2000 which authorised the conclusion of fixed-term contracts once a worker has reached the age of 52, with this type of contract being able to be renewed an indefinite number of times. The Court says that this important category of workers, determined exclusively as a function of age, thus risks, during a substantial part of their careers, being excluded from benefiting from the stability of employment which still constitutes a major element of worker protection. It adds that although the objective here - promoting the professional integration of older unemployed workers - in principle justifies differential treatment based on age, the TzBfG goes beyond what is necessary and appropriate to achieve this legitimate objective.
The Munich Labour Court had referred to the European Court of Justice the case of Werner Mangold who, at the age of 56, was offered a seven-month contract with a lawyer of which he was not able to negotiate the duration because of the law in force, but which he brought before the German courts. The Labour Court stated that the TzBfG was incompatible with the provisions of the European directive of 2000 on equal-treatment of workers in employment and occupation, which the European Court of Justice has now confirmed. The Court adds that, in this case, it had not been demonstrated “fixing an age threshold, as such, regardless of any other consideration linked to the structure of the labour market in question or the personal situation of the person concerned, is objectively necessary to the attainment of the objective which is the vocational integration of unemployed older workers”. The only exception tolerated under the German law was the case of a worker on a non-fixed term contract who was made redundant by a company and subsequently re-employed by that company on a fixed term contract within six months of the redundancy.