A BRITISH law that gives employers the right to force staff to retire can be justified if it is part of a wider social policy, the EU’s top court has ruled.
The ruling leaves British law unchanged, delighting employers but disappointing lobby groups for older people, which vowed to take their fight for the right to continue working beyond 65 years of age back to the British courts.
The British law puts into effect an EU directive and allows companies to dismiss an employee without redundancy payments when he or she reaches 65 or the mandatory retirement age set by the company.
The European Court of Justice said EU law allowed for such discrimination on the grounds of age if it were part of a wider social policy.
“This kind of difference of treatment on grounds of age is justified if it is a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate social policy objective related to employment policy, the labour market or vocational training,” the court said in a statement.
“It is for the national court to ascertain, first, whether the United Kingdom legislation reflects such a legitimate aim and, second, whether the means chosen were appropriate and necessary to achieve it.”
Heyday, the membership organisation of lobby group Age Concern, had complained that Britain was not applying the EU law properly. Britain argued that its law did not fall within the scope of the EU rules.
Age Concern and charity Help the Aged said the British high court would now have to examine whether a default retirement age was justified under EU law on the grounds of social policy and not the interests of individual businesses.
The British government has just ended mandatory retirement ages for civil servants but has failed to change the law to benefit all employees, said Age Concern director general Gordon Lishman.
Thousands of employers and staff have been locked in confusion and costly proceedings over the legality of enforcing a default retirement age of 65, said Tim Marshall, head of employment practice at law firm DLA Piper.
“Now we must endure further litigation as the UK high court conducts an assessment of whether the default retirement age can be objectively justified,” he said.
Jo Keddie, head of employment at Dawsons law firm, said the high court was likely to determine that compulsory retirement at 65 was justified. – (Reuters)