The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled in the ’Jaegar’ case on 9th September 2003 that the time a doctor spends at the hospital - on call but resting - counts as working time.
The case, Landeshauptstadt Kiel v Norbert Jaeger, established the principle that a Community directive precludes national legislation which categorises on-call duty as rest time save for periods of actual activity.
That interpretation is not altered by the fact that the employer makes available to the doctor a rest room in which he can stay for as long as his professional services are not required.
The Court adds that a doctor who is required to keep himself available to his employer at the place determined by him for the whole duration of periods of on-call duty is subject to appreciably greater constraints than a doctor on stand-by since he has to remain apart from his family and social environment and has less freedom to manage the time during which his professional services are not required. Under those conditions, a doctor required to be available at the place determined by his employer cannot be regarded as being at rest during the periods of his on-call duty when he is not actually carrying on any professional activity.
The decision of the ECJ confirms the opinion of the Advocate-General published on April 2003.
