The Court of Justice of the European Union as the Creator of a Protective Standard Against Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation: A Critical Analysis

Sexual orientation is one of the characteristics legally protected under European Union law. The normative dimension of the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination in the EU order – not limited to this issue only – is the result not only of lawmaking activity, in particular legislative, but also of jurisprudence. Indeed, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) plays a major role in raising the level of protection of persons of non-heteronormative sexual orientation from discrimination, both in the spheres covered by EU anti-discrimination law and in other areas of EU law. The purpose of this article is to analyse the activity of the CJEU vis-a-vis the protection of homosexual persons from discrimination. The analysis is enriched by an attempt to critically evaluate selected Luxembourg jurisprudence and to anticipate the direction of its development. The object and purpose of the analysis determined the research methods used, which consist of the dogmatic-legal method, the theoretical-legal method, and a kind of legal hermeneutics.