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Luxembourg (dpa) - According to an opinion of the ECJ, national rules can set higher hurdles for a headscarf ban in the workplace in individual cases.
Specifically, it is about the fact that in Germany such a ban would have to prove a “sufficiently concrete risk of economic disadvantage for the employer or an affected third party”, the highest EU court announced on Thursday.
This is compatible with EU law.
In principle, however, female employees can be prohibited from wearing a headscarf at work.
The background are two cases from Hamburg and the Nuremberg area.
On the one hand, a Muslim employee of a non-denominational daycare center had been warned several times because she had come to work with a headscarf.
The Hamburg Labor Court had put questions to the ECJ in the case.
On the other hand, in 2019 the Federal Labor Court asked the highest European court for a statement in the case of a Muslim woman who had sued against a headscarf ban at the drugstore chain Müller.
While the employees saw their religious freedom restricted, the drugstore chain referred to entrepreneurial freedom.
In 2017, the ECJ made headlines in a similar case with a much-noticed ruling.
At that time, the top judges of the EU advocated that employers could possibly prohibit a headscarf in the job, for example if ideological symbols were generally prohibited in the company and there were objective reasons for this.
In these circumstances, a headscarf ban does not constitute direct discrimination.
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© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210225-99-587742 / 2
Communication on the ECJ ruling 2017