The High Court is to hear the Age Concern and Help the Aged legal challenge to the 65 default retirement age on 16 July.
The High Court referred the challenge to the age discrimination Regulations to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which held that the relevant provisions of the Regulations are not inherently incompatible with the Equality Framework Directive.
The ECJ took the view that the default retirement age can, in principle, be justified “by legitimate social policy objectives, such as those related to employment policy, the labour market or vocational training”, provided that it is an “appropriate and necessary” means of achieving such an objective. But the UK Government will have to meet a “high standard of proof” to show such justification.
The High Court will now assess the evidence, and decide whether or not the default retirement age can be justified in accordance with the ECJ’s judgment. The hearing will run until 20 July, and it is expected that the final judgment will be published in the autumn.
Transcript of the ECJ judgment (on the Europa website)
XpertHR has two case reports on the ECJ judgment
The Age Concern website has more details on the case and the reasons behind the challenge
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