The European Court of Justice and the Rhetoric of Affirmative Action

The recent Marschall decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to uphold a principle giving precedence to women for promotions in the workplace seems promising for the future of affirmative action. At first glance, this decision seems to indicate that the ECJ has taken a different path, moving away from its earlier Kalanke decision which had jeopardised further development of affirmative action in the European Union. On a closer examination, both Kalanke’s sweeping ban of preferential treatment based on gender and Marschall’s new interpretation appear as discursive replies to the same dilemma: should the Court deny the normative objective of equality contained in EC law to generate meaning, thus turning equality into a mere formal principle and rendering judicial review trivial? Or should it embrace a substantive reading of the fundamental principle of equality between men and women, thus substituting the Court judgment for that of the legislature, and subverting the limits of the ECJ’s powers? The aim of this article is to analyse the ECJ’s rhetorical response to the complexities contained in affirmative action judicial review.