Employers may forbid workers from wearing religious clothes or symbols on the job, a top European Union court has ruled, spurring protest by Muslim and Jewish groups.
The ruling last month by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg “is a step backwards from religious freedoms,” Conference of European Rabbis president Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday. Its full text was published last week.
The decision, which reaffirms and expands on a 2017 ruling by the same tribunal, was in response to claims by two Muslim women in Germany whose employers banned them from wearing head scarves to work. They sued their employers and a German court referred the case to the EU court based on the precedent.
“This is basically a ruling that says it’s OK for employers to tell Muslim women not to wear head scarves, but the implications are broader and extend to Jewish women, Jewish men wearing a kippah [skullcap] and Christians wearing a cross pendant,” Goldschmidt said.
The rabbi said he was not aware of current work disputes of this kind involving Jews.
In its ruling, the court cited the need to preserve an atmosphere of “neutrality” in the workplace, adding that any workplace ban must correspond to a genuine “need” by employers.
Many advocates of steps to limit the wearing of religious symbols in public argue that it is designed as a response to political Islam.
IGMG, an organization in Germany for people of Turkish descent, criticized the ruling as “unconstitutional.”