Date: Thu, 2 May 96 17:22:21 EDT
From: aleonard@counsel.com (Arthur S Leonard -- New York Law School - New York )
Subject: European News



 To:	queerlaw@abacus.oxy.edu		Inet 	


This just in from a correspondent in the United Kingdom:


LANDMARK TRANSSEXUAL RIGHTS DECISION UNDER EUROPEAN COMMUNITY LAW

On 30 April 1996, the Court of Justice of the European 
Communities (or European Court of Justice) in Luxembourg (not the 
European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg) held as follows in 
P. v. S. and Cornwall County Council, Case C-13/94:

"In view of the objective pursued by Council Directive 76/207/EEC 
of 9 February 1976 on the implementation of the principle of 
equal treatment for men and women as regards access to 
employment, vocational training and promotion, and working 
conditions, Article 5(1) of the directive precludes dismissal of 
a transsexual for a reason related to gender reassignment."

Article 5(1) provides that "[a]pplication of the principle of 
equal treatment with regard to working conditions, including the 
conditions governing dismissal, means that men and women shall be 
guaranteed the same conditions without discrimination on grounds 
of sex".  The case involved a male-to-female transsexual person 
who was dismissed by her employer after disclosing her intention 
to undergo gender reassignment.  The key paragraphs of the 
judgment follow:

"20.  Accordingly, the scope of the directive cannot be confined 
simply to discrimination based on the fact that a person is of 
one or other sex.  In view of its purpose and the nature of the 
rights which it seeks to safeguard, the scope of the directive is 
also such as to apply to discrimination arising, as in this case, 
from the gender reassignment of the person concerned.

21.  Such discrimination is based, essentially if not 
exclusively, on the sex of the person concerned.  Where a person 
is dismissed on the ground that he or she intends to undergo, or 
has undergone, gender reassignment, he or she is treated 
unfavourably by comparison with persons of the sex to which he or 
she was deemed to belong before undergoing gender reassignment.

22.  To tolerate such discrimination would be tantamount, as 
regards such a person, to a failure to respect the dignity and 
freedom to which he or she is entitled, and which the Court has a 
duty to safeguard."

Dr. Robert Wintemute
School of Law
King's College, Strand
London  WC2R 2LS
Gre





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