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Equal Treatment: ECJ Judgments in Allonby and K.B. Cases
by Ian Neale 14/01/2004 Printer-friendly version of this page
Two important test cases have been settled by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the past week. In the case of Allonby v Accrington & Rossendale, the ECJ has ruled both for and against Ms Allonby, a self-employed female part-time lecturer who was claiming access to the Teachers Superannuation Scheme (TSS) and under Article 141 (1) EC ("Each Member State shall ensure that the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for equal work or work of equal value is applied"), sought to use as a comparator for equal pay purposes a male lecturer employed full time by Accrington & Rossendale College. In so ruling, the Court largely agreed with the Advocate General's Opinion of 2 April 2003. Aries Members login for more details.
The second case, K.B. v National Health Service Pensions Agency and Secretary of State for Health, concerned the right of transsexuals to survivor's pensions. The ECJ ruled on 7 January 2004 that while pension schemes were entitled to restrict survivor's pensions to married couples, UK law on marriage and birth certificates is contrary to EC law. As a result, transsexuals are denied the right to marry in their acquired sex and because of this denied the right to a survivor's pension. This follows the conclusion of a well-researched and passionately expressed Advocate General's Opinion delivered on 10 June 2003. Aries Members login for more details.
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