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European Union Matters: Grant v South West Trains - European Court of Justice; February 1998

United Kingdom
28/01/1999
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Grant v South West Trains European Court of Justice; February 1998

This case concerned the decision by one of the rail operating companies, South West Trains, not to provide travel concessions to same sex partners, although it did provide them to unmarried partners of the opposite sex. In his Opinion in September 1997, the Advocate General had concluded that, following the decision of the ECJ in the case of PvS in April 1996, Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome did outlaw discrimination based on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender. However, in its decision, the ECJ did not follow this Opinion. The Court said that the condition applied equally to men and women and so could not be regarded as constituting discrimination on the grounds of sex. The Court pointed out that, at this stage at least, European law did not prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Power was given in the Amsterdam Treaty for directives to be proposed outlawing such discrimination, although none had been proposed at the time of this case.

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