A view from the Danish Supreme Court in light of the Ajos Judgment

Abstract

The Ajos judgment of the Danish Supreme Court of December 2016 has to many seemed to raise questions about the authority of EU Law because of the non-compliant result. I will try to briefly explain the Supreme Court’s reasoning behind the judgment and the rather unheard-of non-compliance with a preliminary ruling from the CJEU. In this ruling the CJEU obliged the Supreme Court to give an EU principle prohibiting discrimination on grounds of age precedence over clear and contravening Danish law in a dispute between an employee and a private employer called Ajos. The dispute was about the entitlement of the employee to a special severance allowance. The CJEU told the Danish Supreme Court to rule contra legem and thus against the employer Ajos, as it would go against the said principle not to give the employee a severance allowance.