ECJ Rules that Self-Employed LGBTQ Workers Should Not Face Discrimination

In a significant judgment, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that LGBTQ individuals who identify as self-employed should not be discriminated against when it comes to service provision. This resulted from the claim of an Austria-based graphic designer who identified himself as gay and said that he was denied work by a printing firm on account of his sexual orientation.

It found that self-employed persons are included in service providers’ prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation and that national laws enabling discrimination against such self-employed individuals are incompatible with EU law. Also, this court decided that national courts must interpret national legislation by EU law, and people who have experienced discrimination should be compensated for that.

The decision is a major leap towards the protection of equal rights for self-employed LGBTQ individuals throughout the EU. It explicitly states that no form of discrimination based on gender identity can be justified under any circumstances and affirms full equality between freelance workers and those working as employees.

Nevertheless, this ruling brings up important questions about how individual entrepreneurs could effectively enforce their rights guaranteed by the EU legislation. They may face greater challenges when seeking remedies through the judicial system or launching lawsuits over violations of their rights, especially if they do not belong to any trade unions or have employers representing them. Therefore, governments should ensure the availability of effective legal remedies and support systems for such people within their countries.

This ruling also highlights the need for more awareness about the rights of self-employed persons, especially among those who suffer cross-cutting discriminative factors. Consequently, there will be more than one type of unfavorable treatment faced by self-employed persons identifying themselves as LGBTQ or belonging to other minority groups; hence possibility of getting excluded socially or economically is rather high.

To sum up, ECJ’s decision is another milestone in protecting equality rights for LGBTQ freelancers all over Europe. Nevertheless, inadequate information campaigns about the status quo with employing independent contractors coupled with a lack of access to efficient legal and other remedies on the part of national governments are some of the things that have arisen with this ruling.