The Daily Telegraph reports: “Workers who become ill during their holidays will be legally entitled to extra time off work under controversial plans to be introduced later this year by Vince Cable, the Business Secretary.” The article notes that “The new legal regulations will be introduced in October and the Government estimates that they will cost employers more than £100 million annually.” Moreover, it pointed out “Ministers claim that the new regime must be introduced following several European legal judgments.”

In fact, in January 2009, the ECJ has interpreted the right to paid annual leave enshrined by the Working Time Directive. In Stringer v HM Revenue and Customs, the Court has pointed out that it is for the Member States to lay down, in their domestic law, conditions for the exercise and implementation of the right to paid annual leave but without making the existence of such a right subject to preconditions. It has stressed that the entitlement to paid annual leave as conferred by Article 7 of the Working Time Directive may not be undermined by provisions of national law which exclude the existence of such right or provide for the loss of it if a worker is on sick leave for the whole leave year and/or beyond a carry-over period. According to the Court a worker does not lose his entitlement to paid annual leave if he has been unable to exercise it due to illness.

The ECJ´s rulings have thrown the UK law and practice on sick leave and annual leave into a mess. The Government will have to review the Working Time Regulations in the light of the ECJ's rulings, which according to the Daily Telegraph, will happen in October.

The working time directive is one of the most burdensome pieces of legislation. Nevertheless, every time the ECJ is asked to interpret the Directive, through the preliminary ruling procedure, further burdens are imposed on business. This case was not the first and it won’t be the last.

The ECJ’s rulings could not have come at a worse time. The UK businesses already have to comply with a list that never ends of EU directives and regulations on health and safety at work. These rulings entail further costs and administrative burdensome for British business.

These cases show how the ECJ interferes with member states legal systems, and overrides national rules. This is another clear example that decisions on British worker’s rights are not made by the UK parliament or by UK’s courts. The time has come, as Bill Cash would say, to have “British law to British judges.”