Decision C-284/23 of the Court of Justice concerns the interpretation of certain articles of Directive 92/85/EEC, which aims to protect pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding, as regards safety and health at work. More specifically it concerns the interpretation of Article 10 of that Directive, which provides that pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding may not be dismissed for reasons related to their condition (save in exceptional cases).
The Court considered the situation where a pregnant worker did not know she was pregnant at the time she was dismissed and only found out after the legal time limit for challenging the dismissal had expired. Under German law, if an employee wants to challenge her dismissal after this deadline, she has to make a special request to justify the delay, and she has only two weeks to do so from the time she became aware of the pregnancy.
After examining the legality of this provision, the Court ruled that the Directive must be applied in such a way that employees can effectively exercise their rights. If the requirements of the national law are too difficult or burdensome (e.g. a very short deadline of only two weeks to submit such a request), they would make the rights under the Directive very difficult to put into practice.
