European Age Discrimination – “it’s a getting old thing…………..”!

Simone reports……… 

Is the UK Age Discrimination legislation unlawful?  Age Concern think so…….. they are currently challenging the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 on two fronts.  They believe Regulation 30, which permits employers to compulsory retire employees at age 65, is contrary to the EC Equal Treatment Directive and that the circumstances in which direct age discrimination can be justified, have been drafted too widely. Recently, Age Concern’s challenge won an important victory in the European Court of Justice (ECJ).  It ruled that the:

“UK can have forced retirement legislation but only if UK Government is able to justify such a policy. 

We’ll await with interest the High Court’s ruling later this year on whether the

UK’s default retirement age is justified and whether regulation 3(1) of the Age Regulations is compatible with EU law.

Whatever happens there will be some interesting ricochets for employers……

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