Frédéric Hay v. Crédit agricole mutuel de Charente-Maritime et des Deux-Sèvres, Case C‑267/12, CJEU (Fifth Chamber), 12 December 2013

Refusal to award the employee who has contracted a civil solidarity pact (PACS) days of special leave and a bonus granted to staff who marry. Discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Directive 2000/78/EC of the Council of 27 November 2000

1. Article 2(2)(a) of Directive 2000/78 provides that direct discrimination is to be taken to occur when a person is treated in a less favourable manner than another person in a comparable situation, on one of the grounds listed in Article 1 thereof, including sexual orientation.  In respect of registered life partnerships, the comparison of the situations must be based on an analysis focusing on the rights and obligations of the spouses and registered life partners as they result from the applicable domestic provisions, which are relevant taking account of the purpose and the conditions for granting the benefit at issue in the main proceedings, and must not consist in examining whether national law generally and comprehensively treats registered life partnership as legally equivalent to marriage.

2. Same-sex persons who, unable to enter into marriage, enter into a PACS, are in a situation similar to that of the couples who marry, the result is the comparability of the situations of married workers and homosexual workers united in a PACS regarding granting of leave days and prizes on the occasion of the wedding.Therefore, Article 2(2)(a) of Directive 2000/78 must be interpreted as precluding a provision in a collective agreement  under which an employee who concludes a PACS with a person of the same sex is not allowed to obtain the same benefits, such as days of special leave and a salary bonus, as those granted to employees on the occasion of their marriage, where the national rules of the Member State concerned do not allow persons of the same sex to marry, in so far as, in the light of the objective of and the conditions relating to the grant of those benefits, that employee is in a comparable situation to an employee who marries.