The Federal Administrative Court has dismissed lawsuits against the controversial Bavarian cruise decree. The court in Leipzig decided on Tuesday that the Free State of Bavaria does not have to remove crosses that have been hanging in every state building since 2018.
The crosses did not violate the right to religious freedom of other ideological communities. According to the Federal Administrative Court, they are also not a violation of Article 3 of the Basic Law, which states that no one may be discriminated against because of their faith.
The Association for Freedom of Thought, an association in which people critical of religion have come together, sued the decree. The organization sees the 2018 regulation as violating the freedom of belief of its members and the state’s duty of neutrality. The Bavarian administrative courts dismissed the lawsuit in the first and second instances as unfounded, but allowed an appeal to the Federal Administrative Court.
In June 2022, the Administrative Court classified the crosses as passive symbols “without proselytizing and indoctrinating effects.” The judges in Leipzig now also followed this assessment.
In April 2018, the Bavarian cabinet passed the cruise decree on the initiative of Söder, who had recently become Prime Minister at the time. Despite strong criticism – even from the churches, which accused Söder of misusing the Christian symbol for election campaign purposes – the decree came into force in June 2018. Since then, paragraph 28 of the rules of procedure for the authorities of the Free State states: “A cross must be clearly visible in the entrance area of every office building as an expression of Bavaria’s historical and cultural character.” . The public debate about crosses in public buildings has been largely silent for a long time.
However, the Association for Freedom of Thought announced the next step before the verdict was announced: in the event of a defeat, they would turn to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe.