(ZENIT News / Strasbourg, 12.05.2023).- On November 28, the European Union Court of Justice (CJEU) approved that a country’s public administration may prohibit its employees from wearing signs that reveal their ideological or religious beliefs to create a «neutral administrative environment.»
An employee of the Ans Town Hall (Belgium) wore an Islamic headscarf to her job as an office manager. Although she had no contact with the public, she was prohibited from wearing the garment due to its expression of her Muslim identity.
The municipality established in its work regulations that employees observe strict neutrality, prohibiting any form of proselytism and the use of signs revealing their ideological or religious convictions, including those who work without contact with users.
The employee argued that her religious freedom was violated, and she was subjected to discriminatory treatment. The Labor Court of Liège asked the CJEU whether the neutrality required by the Town Hall represented discrimination contrary to European Union law. The Court ruled that «Such a rule is not discriminatory if applied in a general and indiscriminate manner to all employees of that administration and is limited to what is strictly necessary.»
After instituting this ban, the municipal administration modified its regulations to prohibit all workers from displaying obvious signs of their ideological or religious positions.
A EU Court of Justice ruled that the rule «may be considered objectively justified by a legitimate purpose,» although it acknowledges that the public administration may authorize the use of visible signs by employees regarding their philosophical or religious convictions: «Each Member State, and any sub-state entity within its competencies, has a margin of discretion in designing the neutrality of the public service it wishes to promote in the workplace, depending on its own context.»
The CJEU states that «a rule of this kind is not discriminatory if applied in a general and undifferentiated manner to all personnel of that administration and is limited to what is strictly necessary.»
However, the Court warns that the goal of neutrality should be acted upon appropriately and systematically with only necessary measures. Like any legal intervention, it seeks to prevent excesses, although the neutrality claimed by the CJEU forgets that eliminating all religious symbols in a setting supports the existence of atheist symbols, i.e., the denial of God in workplace spaces.
