The Employment Appeals Tribunal(EAT) has confirmed an earlier employment tribunal finding that a claim for unfair dismissal by a Mr Lloyd-Briden who was over 65 years of age at the time of his dismissal in January 2006 be struck out. This was pursuant to s.109 ERA 1996 that excluded people over 65 years from being able to claim unfair dismissal. This legislation remained valid until 1st October 2006. Mr Lloyd-Briden's attempt to invoke Mangold v Helm to support his claim was rejected.
The Mangold case came about after the German government enacted discriminatory legislation in 2002 with regard to fixed contract workers aged over 52 years of age. The judge found that the ECJ found in favour of Mangold because this new legislation was incompatible with the general principles of the Equality Directive 2000/78. Time had been given until 2006 for governments to bring their own legislation into line with the Equality Directive. This did not however mean that until that date discriminatory legislation could be enacted, and this is why the ECJ had found in favour of Mangold.
Here in the UK however domestic legislation was already on the books, and was therefore legally valid until the date set for bringing all domestic legislation into line with the Equality Directive 2000/78.
Judge Wilkie stated that "where, as here, the UK government has complied with the provisions of article 18, there is no place for the direct operation in domestic UK law of the general principles so as to extend the provisions against discrimination, which are found in the Directive, so that they apply earlier than the timely transposition of the Directive into UK domestic law".
© Workrep 15 / 07 / 2007