EU court rules out Islamic headscarf
Print Edition
EUROPEAN companies can ban employees from wearing religious or political symbols including the Islamic headscarf, the EU’s top court ruled yesterday.
The European Court of Justice said it does not constitute “direct discrimination” if a firm has an internal rule banning the wearing of “any political, philosophical or religious sign.”
The Luxembourg-based court was considering the case of a Muslim woman fired by security company G4S after she insisted on wearing a headscarf.
Rights group Amnesty International said the decision was “disappointing” and would only encourage discrimination. “By ruling that company policies can prohibit religious symbols on the grounds of neutrality, they have opened a back door to precisely such prejudice,” it said.
The wearing of religious symbols, and especially Islamic symbols such as the headscarf, has become a hot issue with the rise of nationalist and sometimes overtly anti-Muslim parties across Europe.
Some countries are considering a ban on the full-face veil in public while in France last year local authorities banned women from wearing the burkini, the full-body swimsuit.
Manfred Weber, head of the European People’s Party, the biggest in the European Parliament, welcomed the latest ruling as a victory for European values.
“Important ruling by the European Court of Justice: employers have the right to ban the Islamic veil at work. European values must apply in public life,” he said in a tweet.
The court was ruling on a case dating back to 2003 when Samira Achbita was employed as a receptionist by G4S in Belgium.
At the time, the company had an “unwritten rule” that employees should not wear any political, religious or philosophical symbols at work, the court said.
In 2006, Achbita told G4S she wanted to wear the Islamic headscarf at work but was told this would not be allowed.
Subsequently, the company introduced a formal ban. Achbita was dismissed and she went to court claiming discrimination.
The EU court said European Union law bars discrimination on religious grounds, but G4S’s actions were based on treating all employees the same, meaning no one person was singled out.
“The rule thus treats all employees of the undertaking in the same way, notably by requiring them, generally and without any differentiation, to dress neutrally,” the court said.
“Accordingly, such an internal rule does not introduce a difference of treatment that is directly based on religion or belief.”
However in a related case in France, the court said a customer could not demand a company employee not wear the Islamic headscarf when conducting business with them on its behalf.
Design engineer Asma Bougnaoui was employed full-time by Micropole, a private company, in 2008.
Following a complaint, Micropole asked her not to wear the headscarf on the grounds employees should dress neutrally.
She was subsequently dismissed and went to court claiming discrimination.
The court said the case turned on whether there was an internal company rule in place applicable to all, as at G4S, or whether Bougnaoui had been treated differently.
It concluded that she had been treated differently.
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