Mary Murphy and others v An Bord Telecom Eireann: ECJ 4 Feb 1988

Article 119 of the EEC Treaty, which is directly applicable in the sense that the workers concerned may rely on it in legal proceedings and in the sense that national courts or tribunals must take it into account as a constituent part of community law, must be interpreted as covering, in addition to the case of unequal pay for equal work or work of equal value, the case where a worker who relies on that provision to obtain equal pay within the meaning thereof is engaged in work of higher value than that of the person with whom a comparison is to be made. It is for the national court or tribunal before which a party relies on a directly applicable Treaty provision, within the limits of its discretion under national law, when interpreting and applying domestic law, to give to it, where possible, an interpretation which accords with the requirements of the applicable community law and, to the extent that this is not possible, to hold such domestic law inapplicable.

Citations:

C-157/86, [1988] ICR 445, [1988] 1 CMLR 879

Jurisdiction:

European

Cited by:

CitedPickstone v Freemans Plc HL 30-Jun-1988
The claimant sought equal pay with other, male, warehouse operatives who were doing work of equal value but for more money. The Court of Appeal had held that since other men were also employed on the same terms both as to pay and work, her claim . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

European, Discrimination

Updated: 05 May 2022; Ref: scu.134435