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| Employers can ban staff from wearing headscarves, European court rules | Employers can ban staff from wearing headscarves, European court rules |
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| Employers may bar staff from wearing visible religious symbols, the European Union’s top court has ruled in its first decision on the issue of women wearing Islamic headscarves at work. | |
| But customers cannot simply demand that workers remove headscarves if the company has no policy barring religious symbols, the court ruled on Tuesday. | |
| On the eve of a Dutch election in which Muslim immigration has been a key issue and a bellwether for attitudes to migration and refugee policies across Europe, the European court of justice (ECJ) gave a joined judgment in the cases of two women, in France and Belgium, who were dismissed for refusing to remove headscarves. | On the eve of a Dutch election in which Muslim immigration has been a key issue and a bellwether for attitudes to migration and refugee policies across Europe, the European court of justice (ECJ) gave a joined judgment in the cases of two women, in France and Belgium, who were dismissed for refusing to remove headscarves. |
| “An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,” the court said in a statement. | “An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,” the court said in a statement. |
| “However, in the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employer’s services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination.” | “However, in the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employer’s services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination.” |
| In considering the two sensitive cases, the ECJ ruled that a company’s wish to project a neutral image was legitimate and allowed internal rules banning political, philosophical or religious symbols. | |
| The first case was referred to the ECJ by the Belgian courts. Samira Achbita had been a receptionist for the Belgian branch of G4S, the London-listed outsourcing and security company, when after three years at the firm she decided she wanted to start wearing a headscarf at work for religious reasons. Achbita was fired in June 2006 for refusing to take off her scarf. The company said she had broken unwritten rules prohibiting religious symbols. | |
| In the second case, design engineer Asma Bougnaoui was fired from an IT consultancy firm, Micropole, following a complaint from a customer who claimed his staff had been “embarrassed” by her headscarf while she was on their premises giving advice. Before taking the job she had been told that wearing a headscarf might pose problems for the company’s customers. | |
| In Achbita’s case the ECJ followed the advice of a senior legal adviser to the court, who argued that companies should be allowed to have policies banning the wearing of religious and political symbols. | |
| “The court of justice finds that G4S’s internal rule refers to the wearing of visible signs of political, philosophical or religious beliefs and therefore covers any manifestation of such beliefs without distinction. The rule thus treats all employees to the undertaking in the same way, notably by requiring them, generally and without any differentiation, to dress neutrally.” | |
| In the Bougnaoui case the court’s adviser had ruled that the Frenchwoman had suffered discrimination. She had been “professionally competent” and sacked only because she had refused to remove her headscarf, the advocate general advised. | |
| The court upheld this view with a less ringing endorsement: it said customers’ wishes not to be served by a worker wearing a headscarf did not give companies a get-out clause from EU anti-discrimination law. The ECJ did not rule, however, on whether Bougnaoui’s dismissal was based on her failure to observe company policies, saying this was a matter for the French court to determine. |