Tadao Maruko v. Versorgungsanstalt der deutschen Bühnen, Case C-267/06, CJEU (Grand Chamber), 1 April 2008

Equal treatment in employment and occupation. Discrimination based on sexual orientation. Establishment of registered life partnerships. Entitlement to a widower’s pension for surviving life partners.

Council Directive 2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation

1. Unequal treatment between life partnership and marriage amounts to direct discrimination based on sexual orientation, where the two situations are comparable from the point of view of domestic law and the entitlement to the latter is reserved only to persons of the opposite sex.

2. It is for the national courts to determine the actual analogy between life partnership and marriage and, therefore, to verify whether a surviving life partner is in a situation comparable to that of a spouse who is entitled to the survivor’s benefit provided for under an occupational pension scheme.

3. Even though civil status and the benefits flowing therefrom are matters which fall within the domestic competences, in the exercise of that competence the Member States must comply with Community law and, in particular, with the provisions relating to the principle of non-discrimination.

(In the present case, a German insurance institution denied a survivor’s pension to the surviving partner of a same sex couple who had established a registered life partnership under national law).