The ECJ Decision in Mangold: A Further Twist on Effects of Directives and Constitutional Relevance of Community Equality Legislation
Posted: 29 Feb 2008 Last revised: 11 Dec 2017
Date Written: September 1, 2006
Abstract
This long annotation to the ECJ's decision in Mangold focuses on the question whether the Court indeed approved of horizontal effects of directives, or whether the relevance of the case is narrower and more important at the same time. I defend the view that the Court accorded exclusionary horizontal effects to such provisions in directives which give expression to constitutional principles. Exclusionary effects are merely negative, in that they exclude application of a piece of national law. Thus, the provision of a directive never is directly effective in horizontal relations. This view was confirmed by the German Constitutional Court in its final decision on the matter (the case is known under "Honeywell case" in 2010. I explain the relevance of this in my annotation of the ECJ ruling in Kuecuekdeveci (sorry, can't be bothered to copy-paste the Umlauts), which was published in the 2010 in the European Labour Law Review.
Keywords: European Union, effects of directives, human rights, anti-discrimination
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