An Employee is prohibited from wearing an Islamic Headscarf does not constitute Direct Discrimination based on Religion

Employers can prohibit the wearing of Islamic headscarf at work as long as the company bans visible political, philosophical and religious symbols in the workplace.

Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, Julian Kokott said that the fact that a female employee of Muslim faith is prohibited from wearing an Islamic headscarf at work does not constitute direct discrimination based on religion if that ban is founded on a general company rule prohibiting visible political, philosophical and religious symbols in the workplace and not on stereotypes or prejudice against one or more particular religions or against religious beliefs in general.

The Advocate General underlined that such kind of a ban may constitute indirect discrimination based on religion only when the employer is trying to enforce to its employees a religious or ideological neutrality.

Kokott explained that she took under consideration the following factors regarding the case:

(i) the size and conspicuousness of the religious symbol;

(ii) the nature of the employee’s activity;

(iii) the context in which the employee had to perform that activity;

(iv) and the national identity of the Member State concerned.

The case was brought to the CVRIA, when a Belgian court asked for clarification on what is prohibited by EU anti-discrimination laws.

In the Belgian case, Samira Achbita was fired as a receptionist by a security company after she insisted she should be allowed to work wearing an Islamic headscarf. Achbita has lost her discrimination lawsuit in two Belgian courts and is now before the country’s Court of Cassation, which sought the EU court’s opinion.