Now There's A Surprise

The youngest female drivers face significant increases in their insurance costs from this month, according to new figures.

Higher insurance costs had been predicted, as a result of the ban on different prices for men and women which starts on 21 December.

A European court ruling last year found that gender discrimination in insurance was against the law.

Insurance brokers are reporting rises of 40% or more in some quotes.

This is for cover for motorists starting this December, compared with quotes for policies starting in November. In some cases they can be even higher.

The European ruling means that women will also pay more for life assurance, while men will receive lower annuities - a pension income for the rest of their lives.

The consequences of such a ruling are not a surprise, just more confirmation that our lives are affected by unaccountable institutions.

Interestingly the BBC uses the term; "A European court". The European Court in question is the European Court of Justice which is part of the...EU. But not once is that mentioned in the piece...

The German Constitutional Court Restricts Its Own Powers

Back in January this year I wrote about the German age discrimination case of Seda Kücükdeveci, the outcome of which appeared to be a declaration of war by the ECJ on Germany's Constitutional Court's self proclaimed powers over the Lisbon Treaty. At the time I noted:

What's interesting to note is that this is a direct challenge to the German Constitutional Court's self proclaimed supremacy, that it established in a ruling before Germany's ratification of the Lisbon Treaty:

“The peoples of the member-states are the holders of the constituent power. The Basic Law does not permit the special bodies of the legislative, executive and judicial power to dispose of the essential elements of the constitution.”

By ruling that, essentially, directives can have a horizontal effect - they can be relied upon in a suit between citizens - the ECJ has issued a challenge by directly using the anti-discrimination directive in an employer-employee relationship, thus by-passing German industrial law.

It will be interesting to see the Constitutional Court's response.

Kücükdeveci was essentially a Mangold part 2 (this time it's personal) case. Mangold was a notorious case in 2005 which the ECJ ruled that German law was 'inapplicable':

The plaintiff in the so-called Mangold case had a temporary work contract with an auto supplier. The arrangement was based on a government law allowing employers to give only temporary work to people over 52 years of age.

The EU court ruled that the law, proposed as part of a general package to free up the country's labour market, was age discriminatory and should not be enforced. This in turn led the national court to say the plaintiff was within his rights to ask for a permanent contract.

The employer then took the matter to the constitutional court saying that the EU court had overstepped its powers by ruling on short-term contracts as protection against anti-age discrimination was not part of EU primary law but had been handed down in a directive, which member states have some leeway in implementing.

Quite simply there has been a sort of legal arms race between the German court and the ECJ over EU primary law. And according to the judgment reported by today's EUObserver it looks as if the Germans have backed down for the sake of EU unity:

Germany's constitutional court has laid down the ground rules for controlling decisions by the EU top's court, an area that had been left unclear after a controversial 2009 ruling by Germany's highest judges on the Lisbon Treaty, the EU's new rule book.

Thursday's pronouncement backed by seven of the eight judges not only avoids a direct conflict with the EU's Luxembourg court but also appears to strengthen it. Germany's court stated that EU decisions may only be checked if European institutions seriously overstep their powers.

As a headline in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says: "Karlruhe (the court) restricts its own powers."

The ECJ is trying to expand the scope of EU law and establishing its primacy via Directives so that they are directly applicable. It now appears they won't meet much resistance (my emphasis):

One judge, Herbert Landau, disputed the decision reached by his colleagues, whom he accused of abandoning the Lisbon Treaty consensus. He said the ECJ decision on age discrimination was clearly overstepping its powers and said his colleagues did not take into account the creeping transfer of powers to the EU.

German President Roman Herzog, who has been critical of the direction of the EU court's rulings in the past, has previously written that the Mangold case would set the tone for future relations between the ECJ and national courts.

It's currently developing its jurisprudence in the area of age discrimination and it's hard to see how the German Constitutional Court will now challenge the Kücükdeveci verdict.

The only question left is what area will be next for the ECJ?

When Is A Peep Show Really A Cinema?

In a rather bizarre VAT case at the European Court of Justice, the owner of a Belgian sex shop is attempting to argue that a coin-in-the-slot peep show counts as a cinema, which would then qualify for a reduction in VAT.

Under EU rules a cinema qualifies for a lower rate of VAT because they are identified has having a social or cultural purpose and in Belgian this reduces the rate from 21% to 6%.

The question posed to the ECJ is as follows:

Should a cubicle consisting of a lockable space where there is room for only one person and where this person can watch films on a television screen for payment, where this person personally starts the film projection by inserting a coin and has
a choice of different films, and during the time paid for can continually modify his/her choice of projected films, be regarded as a ‘cinema’ as referred to in the Sixth Council Directive
No 77/388/EEC (1) of 17 May 1977, Annex H, Category 7 (subsequently: Annex III, No 7, of Council Directive 2006/112/EC (2) of 28 November 2006)?

Now, a number of questions spring to mind; 1) Will the judges need to make a site visit, 2) why don't Belgians have the internet and, 3) are Pringles really cakes?

ECJ Ruling Challenges Supremacy of German Constitutional Court

I'm a bit late to this, but I've just spotted this ruling by the EU Court of Justice on Tuesday. It involves the case of a 28-year-old German woman, who claimed age discrimination on the basis that her employer refused to take account of all her years of service to calculate her redundancy notice period.

Seda Kücükdeveci had been working for Swedex GmbH since she was 18 and she was made redundant in 2006. Under German law, her employer needs only to take into account the number of years she had been with the company since aged 25; thus they gave her one rather than four months’ notice.

The ECJ ruled that this was discrimination on grounds of age at the workplace, and was against EU law:

On those grounds, the Court (Grand Chamber) hereby rules:

1. European Union law, more particularly the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of age as given expression by Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which provides that periods of employment completed by an employee before reaching the age of 25 are not taken into account in calculating the notice period for dismissal.

2. It is for the national court, hearing proceedings between individuals, to ensure that the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of age, as given expression in Directive 2000/78, is complied with, disapplying if need be any contrary provision of national legislation, independently of whether it makes use of its entitlement, in the cases referred to in the second paragraph of Article 267 TFEU, to ask the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of that principle.

What's interesting to note is that this is a direct challenge to the German Constitutional Court's self proclaimed supremacy, that it established in a ruling before Germany's ratification of the Lisbon Treaty:

“The peoples of the member-states are the holders of the constituent power. The Basic Law does not permit the special bodies of the legislative, executive and judicial power to dispose of the essential elements of the constitution.”

By ruling that, essentially, directives can have a horizontal effect - they can be relied upon in a suit between citizens - the ECJ has issued a challenge by directly using the anti-discrimination directive in an employer-employee relationship, thus by-passing German industrial law.

It will be interesting to see the Constitutional Court's response. It will also be interesting to see Cameron's response (should he win the GE) when he, undoubtedly, faces a similar challenge despite his rhetoric regarding a sovereignty bill.

I don't hold out much hope.