Estonia – agediscrimination.info

Discrimination of employees is prohibited under Article 10 of the Estonian Employment Contract Act (Eesti Vabariigi töölepingu seadus, hereinafter ECA). Article 10 (3) of ECA stipulates that discrimination shall be taken to occur where a person applying for employment or an employee is discriminated against on grounds of sex, racial origin, age, ethnic origin, level of language proficiency, disability, sexual orientation, duty to serve in defence forces, marital or family status, family-related duties, social status, representation of the interests of employees or membership in workers’ associations, political opinions or membership in a political party or religious or other beliefs. Pursuant to Article 10 (1) of ECA, employers shall not, upon employment and entry into employment contracts, discriminate against persons applying for employment on any of the grounds listed in Article 10 (3) of ECA. Pursuant to Article 10 (2) of ECA, employers shall not discriminate against employees on any of the grounds specified in Article 10 (3) of ECA upon remuneration, promotion in employment or office, giving instructions, termination of employment contracts, access to retraining or in-service training or otherwise in employment relations.

Article 10² of ECA prohibits both direct and indirect discrimination against employees or persons applying for employment.

Direct discrimination shall be deemed to occur where a person applying for employment or an employee is treated less favourably than another person applying for employment or another employee is, has been or would be treated in a comparable situation, on any of the grounds specified in Article 10 (3) of ECA (including age) (Article 10² (2) of ECA).

Indirect discrimination shall be deemed to occur where an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice would put employees or persons applying for employment at a particular disadvantage compared with other employees or persons applying for employment on any of the grounds specified in Article 10 (3) (including age), unless that provision, criterion or practice is objectively justified by a legitimate aim and the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary (Article 10² (3) of ECA).

In addition to the above, Article 10² of ECA prohibits harassment of employees. For the purposes of ECA, harassment shall be deemed to be a form of direct discrimination on any of the grounds specified in Article 10 (3) of ECA (including age). Harassment shall be taken to occur where unwanted conduct or act, either verbal, non-verbal or physical, takes place against a person in a relationship of subordination or dependency with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of the person and of creating a disturbing, intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment, and the person rejects such conduct or tolerates it for a reason that it affects his or her access to office or employment or in order to maintain the employment relationship, have access to training, receive remuneration or have access to other advantages or benefits.

Although a general discrimination prohibition was also in place in Estonia before Estonia joined EU, the respective regulation was developed further in order to meet the requirements of the EU anti-discrimination directive upon Estonia’s accession to EU.

Who’s covered?

The anti-discrimination regulation provided by the ECA applies to employees working on the basis of an employment contract, i.e. an agreement under which the employee undertakes to do work for the employer in subordination to the management and supervision of the employer, and the employer undertakes to remunerate the employee for such work and to provide the working conditions stipulated in the agreement between the parties, a collective agreement, law or administrative legislation (Article 1 of ECA). People working or providing services on the basis of other types of agreements are not covered by the anti-discrimination legislation.

What enforcement/remedies exist?

Estonian law does not set forth criminal sanctions for age discrimination in employment relations.

An employee or a person applying for employment against whom the employer discriminated on the ground of age has the right to demand from the employer compensation for the damage caused by the discrimination. A person with whom the employer refused to enter into an employment contract on the ground of age shall not have the right to demand entry into an employment contract.

A discrimination dispute may be brought to the Legal Chancellor, who conducts a conciliation procedure, to the Labour Dispute Committee or the court of first instance.

How common are claims?

We are not aware of any court practice on age discrimination in employment relations under Estonian law.

What claims are most common and what are trickiest issues for employers?

Since there is no court practice on age discrimination in employment relations in Estonia, it is difficult to predict which issues may prove to be trickiest for employers.

Are there any specific exceptions in your laws?

Pursuant to Article 10¹ subsection 4 of ECA, taking account of the sex, level of language proficiency, age or disability upon employment of a person, or upon giving instructions or enabling access to retraining or in-service training shall not be deemed to be discrimination under Estonian law, if this is an essential and determinative professional requirement arising from the nature of the professional activity or related conditions. The law does not provide any specific grounds capable of justifying differences in treatment of employees.

Retirement ages

Under Estonian law, mandatory retirement applies only to certain categories of civil servants (e.g. regular members of the defence forces, judges, etc). Other than these exceptional cases, employers cannot force employees to retire nor can they fix a certain retirement age. Employees can be dismissed only on grounds exclusively listed in ECA (e.g. breach of duties, unsuitability of an employee for the work due to professional skills or for reasons of health, etc).

Interesting cases

As explained above, we are not aware of any court practice on age discrimination in employment relations under Estonian law.