The First Revision of the Hofmann Case Law on Maternity Leave and Discrimination Against Fathers: Care-Giving as the Pivot?
欧盟法院在36年来首次修订霍夫曼判例，对成员国仅给予女性产假的自由裁量权设定客观限制，试图区分保护女性生理状况的假期与照顾责任。
The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has maintained since 1984, in its well-established Hofmann case law, that maternity leave is a legitimate exception to the principle of equal treatment between men and women to protect both a woman’s biological condition during and after pregnancy and the special relationship between a woman and her child over the period which follows childbirth. This case law has been giving Member States carte blanche to grant maternity leave, whatever its duration, to women only (to the exclusion of men)...until recently. The judgement of the CJEU in the Syndicat CFTC case1 has revised for the first time in 36 years the Hofmann case law by setting some objective limits on the discretion of Member States. This way, the Court is trying to draw a line between, on the one hand, periods of leave genuinely intended to protect women’s biological condition and,...