(CN) - Spain was put on the spot at Europe's human rights court Thursday after a woman was fired soon after suing over unequal pay, in a case the judges said revealed how little protection workers still have when they stand up to discrimination.

Judges at the European Court of Human Rights said Spain failed to uphold basic guarantees of fairness and equality when it allowed the dismissal of a female finance manager who was fired for what her company described as a loss of trust after she took her equal pay claim to court.

Spanish judges missed key clues, the court explained, by overlooking the timing and circumstances of the firing. The problems began once she took her complaint outside the company and into court.

What the judges found lacking in the Spanish courts' reasoning was a sense of context, since the woman's dismissal came only weeks after she filed her equal pay claim, a sequence that strongly pointed to retaliation rather than coincidence.

The panel said real equality means more than just banning discrimination - it also means protecting people who dare to call it out. 

As the judges put it, states "require them to ensure real and effective protection against any form of reprisal by employers in connection with complaints brought to ensure respect of the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of sex."

The story began in Malaga, a city in southern Spain, where Maria de la Pena Ortega spent more than two decades at a financial services company affiliated with a major bank. As head of the finance department, she managed payrolls and eventually discovered that her salary lagged behind the men running other divisions.

In April 2017, she filed a formal complaint with Spain's Mediation, Arbitration and Conciliation Centre, seeking equal pay and compensation. When talks failed, she turned to court under Spain's procedure for the protection of fundamental rights.

That August, a labor court in Malaga sided with her, finding clear proof that she'd been paid less than male colleagues doing equivalent work. Judges ordered the company to raise her salary to match theirs and pay 35,000 euros ($40,800) in damages. The ruling held up on appeal - first at the Andalusian High Court in 2018, then at Spain's Supreme Court a year later.

But before those victories were even final, the company fired her in May 2017, claiming she had broken confidentiality rules by using payroll data to back up her case. Ortega pushed back, saying the move was pure retaliation for standing up for her rights - something Spanish and EU law are meant to protect.

Spanish courts weren't convinced. They accepted the company's explanation and ruled that the firing was lawful, finding no link between her dismissal and her equal pay lawsuit. After losing her final appeals before the Andalusian High Court, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, Ortega took her fight to Strasbourg.

There, the European judges took aim at how Spain handled the case, saying local courts missed the real power dynamic at work. By treating Ortega's firing as a routine workplace dispute instead of a backlash to her complaint, they said, Spain failed to see how retaliation can happen quietly but effectively. 

The ruling made one thing clear: Equality at work is not just about paychecks - it's about making sure women who speak up are not punished for it.

The court also added that this broader framework makes it "crucially important that individuals affected by discriminatory treatment should be provided with an opportunity to challenge it and should have the right to take legal action to obtain damages and other relief."

In Ortega's case, that protection never truly kicked in. The judges said Spain's laws looked fine on paper but fell short in practice, with the labor courts failing to give her real protection against discrimination when it mattered most.

To make up for that failure, the panel ordered Spain to pay Ortega 12,000 euros (around $14,000) in moral damages. 

Ortega's lawyer and Spain's Ministry of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.

The judgment will become final in three months unless Spain asks for a rare Grand Chamber review. If it stands, the ruling could nudge Spain toward stronger protections for workers who risk their jobs by challenging unfair pay.

Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.

Source: Courthouse News Service