Index – Abroad – Religious symbols may be banned at work in EU member states

A member state’s administrative body can decide to ban its employees from wearing religious symbols at work, the Court of Justice of the European Union announced in its ruling on Tuesday, MTI reported.

The background of the case is that the Belgian municipality of Anse prevented an employee, who does her work without communicating with customers, from wearing the hijab at work. Subsequently, the municipality amended its work regulations and obligated its employees to respect the principle of neutrality: no form of proselytization is permitted, and

The person concerned requested to determine whether his right to freedom of religion had been violated or whether he had been subjected to discrimination.

While discussing the case, the Labor Court of Liège stated that it was uncertain whether the strict neutrality requirement imposed by the municipality resulted in discrimination contrary to EU law.

In its ruling, the Luxembourg-based court wrote that member state authorities have discretion in determining the level of neutrality they want to uphold. In order to create a completely neutral public administration environment, the public administration body may prohibit the visible wearing of any symbols indicating philosophical or religious beliefs in the workplace.

Therefore, the policy of complete neutrality imposed by an administrative body in order to create a completely neutral administrative environment for its employees can be considered justified with a legitimate aim.

They wrote.

At the same time, a policy has been developed that generally and without discrimination allows the wearing of visible symbols of a particular belief, including philosophical or religious beliefs, also in the event of contact with clients, and the prohibition of wearing such symbols is limited to situations in which such contact is justified. also.

They added that it is up to national courts to examine compliance with the said requirements.