Germany’s highest court on Thursday upheld a ban on headscarves for Muslim trainee lawyers in courts, finding that the requirement of maintaining religious neutrality was justified.<\/p>\n
The Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling came after a Frankfurt-born\u00a0German-Moroccan legal trainee filed a challenge to Hesse state’s rules.<\/p>\n
In the western state, trainees who keep their headscarves on are not\u00a0allowed to take on tasks in which they may be seen to be acting as\u00a0representatives of the judiciary or the state.<\/p>\n
This means for instance that headscarf-wearing trainees are not allowed to\u00a0sit on the judges’ bench as they observe proceedings like other trainees, but\u00a0would need to follow the process from the floor.<\/p>\n
Likewise, they are not allowed to take evidence or lead hearings.<\/p>\n
Thursday’s ruling was expected to impact a wider debate on the issue in\u00a0Germany, where around 4.5 million Muslims live and where rules on use of the\u00a0hijab headwear differ between the 16 federal states.<\/p>\n
German national law bans all civil servants from covering their faces,\u00a0including with Muslim niqabs and burkas — except for health and safety\u00a0reasons, such as fire-fighters wearing breathing masks.<\/p>\n
But there is no nationwide ban on civil servants wearing the hijab and many\u00a0states weigh the trade-off between freedom of religion and civil servants’\u00a0neutrality rules on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n
A Berlin labour court in 2018 barred a teacher who wore the headscarf from\u00a0teaching primary school classes, but found the she could continue teaching\u00a0older vocational students in a public secondary school in the German capital.<\/p>\n