An employer’s need to present a neutral image may justify a prohibition on any visible expression of beliefs, but must correspond to a genuine need, notwithstanding the specific national context end more favourable national provisions.

The Commission is not bound to give effect to the social partners’ request seeking implementation, at EU level, of the agreement that they have concluded.

Giving an employee an official warning after he participated in a large pre-announced Labour Day demonstration is found to be in breach of the right to freedom of association.

Denial of military pension is deemed to be discriminatory based on nationality.

Dismissal after re-instatement of employment following an ECtHR judgment found an infringement of freedom of speech.

Dismissal for harassment despite acquittal in criminal proceedings is not incompatible with Article 6(2) of the Convention (presumption of innocence).

The Spanish courts breached Article 8 of the Convention on Human Rights by accepting covert footage as valid evidence in court.

The Turkish Supreme Administrative Court cast doubt on a dismissed police officer’s innocence by failing, in an appeal review, to take proper account of the fact that he had been acquitted of rape, in breach of the presumption of innocence contained in Article 6 §2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In Barbulescu, the Court examined for the first time a case concerning the monitoring of an employee’s electronic communications by a private employer. The Grand Chamber decided differently from the Chamber, when it concluded that the Romanian courts, in reviewing the decision of a private employer to dismiss an employee after having monitored his electronic communications, failed to strike a fair balance between the interests at stake: namely the employee’s right to respect for his private life and correspondence, on the one hand, and his employer’s right to take measures to ensure the smooth running of the company, on the other.

The employer had summarily dismissed the director of the company, on the basis that it had the right to protect its reputation and business interests against the criticisms she made in the media. What it failed to take into account was that she was simply responding to earlier criticisms by the employer in the media of her leadership. The expectation that the employee should not respond in the media would overstretch the employees’ duty of loyalty, contrary to Article 10 of the Convention – whereby the right to freedom of expression would protect against unreasonable demands of loyalty by the employer. On the facts, what the employee did was legitimate and within her right to freedom of expression.

ECtHR concludes that there has been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) in the case of retention and disclosure of an employee’s mental-health data and its use in deciding on employees’ applications for promotion.

The ECtHR found no violation of Article 14 of the Convention read together with Article 1 of Protocol 1, in the pension schemes applying to the Brigade of Gurkhas. Although Gurkha soldiers could be regarded as having been treated less favourably than other soldiers in the British army, any difference in treatment had been objectively and reasonably justified.

A company’s obligation to participate in the building industry’s Social Welfare Fund did not breach the company’s right to freedom of association, nor its right to protection of property.