Status: 07/15/2021 12:11 p.m.
Can the wearing of headscarves at work be prohibited? Basically yes, the European Court of Justice has now decided. However, German courts now have the final say in the two cases from Germany.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has strengthened the rights of employers who forbid Muslim employees from wearing headscarves. The ECJ ruled that the ban on wearing any visible form of expression of political, ideological or religious convictions could be justified by the employer’s need to convey an image of neutrality to customers or to avoid social conflicts.
The ruling was based on two cases from Germany. The first concerns the non-profit association WABE, which operates day-care centers. In 2016, a curative educator of the Muslim faith decided to wear the Islamic headscarf, also known as the hijab, at work.
Warnings for daycare employees
In 2018, the association issued an instruction according to which employees in the workplace should not wear any visible signs of political, ideological or religious convictions. In addition to the Islamic headscarf, Christian crosses and Jewish kippas were also affected.
The employee refused to obey. She was initially warned twice and later terminated without notice. The termination was then withdrawn. Before the labor court in Hamburg, however, it was negotiated whether the entries had to be deleted from the personnel file. The court then asked the ECJ to interpret EU law.
Drugstore chain against religious signs
The second case concerned a woman who works as a sales consultant and cashier at the drugstore chain “Müller”. When she returned to work in 2014 after three years of parental leave, she wore a Muslim headscarf – unlike before. The branch manager told the woman that she would not be employed that way, that she would have to work without a headscarf. Because the company has always had a dress code that prohibits the wearing of headgear. The woman took legal action against this.
While the proceedings were in progress, “Müller” also argued: A regulation was created in 2016 that required “without large-scale religious, political and ideological symbols” to appear at work. The argument: the company has more than 14,000 employees from different countries. You want to avoid conflicts within the workforce, but also conflicts in customer contact. The cashier thinks this is illegal. The case went to the Federal Labor Court. This had now submitted it to the ECJ.
Final judgments in Germany
The final judgment in the specific case of the daycare worker and the drug store employee must now be made by the competent German courts. The ECJ emphasized that they certainly have room for maneuver. According to this, the national courts could take into account the context of their respective member state in the context of balancing the rights and interests in question. This is particularly the case if there are more favorable national regulations with regard to the protection of religious freedom.
(Case numbers C-341/19 and C-804/18)
With information from Christoph Kehlbach,
ARD legal editors