The prohibition of discrimination in the Union's layered System of Equality Law : from early Staff cases to the Mangold approach

According to the Court’s case-law, a prohibition of discrimination can flow not only from enacted (written) Union law but also from (unwritten) general principles. Faced with the lack, or limited reach, of written non-discrimination law, the Court recognised the existence of two layers of general principles of equality, namely a general principle of equality tout court (i.e. a principle that is not linked to any discrimination ground) and a number of general principles of equality linked to particular discrimination grounds. In the resulting multi-level system, the Mangold line of case-law in particular raises questions not only about the relevance and function of the general principles of equality in the larger system of Union law, but also about the interrelation between the different layers of equality law and the meaning of the prohibition of discrimination on the level of the general principles. The contribution the contribution traces the creation through the Court’s case-law of the layered system of equality law and its practical implications.