The Fragility of Proportionality Review
The latest decision in Egenberger illustrates both the importance of the EU framework for protecting against discrimination on the grounds of religion, and at the same time its fragility. Since the CJEU decision, two German courts have taken turns at assessing the proportionality of the Church’s refusal to employ Ms Egenberger, with different results. The fact that two courts could consider the same facts and reach opposite conclusions without either seeming to have misapplied the law shows how flexible the law can be.
Continue reading >>
The Battle over the Sacred and the Profane
Struggles around sexual and reproductive rights pit more liberally, progressive-oriented or “frontlash” actors against other, including non-liberal, often radical-conservative “backlash” organizations. In the actions of the latter, religion is an explicit and core dimension. This struggle is about a political and religious backlash to a largely secular, progressive cultural and human rights revolution. It confronts opposing sides of (transnational) civil society, who both make moral, “sacred” claims, while profaning the opponent.
Continue reading >>
Beyond Religious Freedom
In contemporary Europe, the protection of religious minorities continues to rest predominantly on the constitutional architecture of religious freedom and non-discrimination. Yet this framework often proves insufficient to capture the specific vulnerabilities and identity-based claims of minority communities. Protecting minorities therefore demands recognising the specific forms of vulnerability produced by their social and constitutional position.
Continue reading >>
Compulsion to Freedom
On 11 December 2025, the Austrian National Council adopted a headscarf ban for students under 14 in the name of protecting children’s freedom of development and fulfillment. A first attempt of banning headscarves in 2019 was overturned by the Constitutional Court. The legislator has to a large extent taken the requirements of the Constitutional Court into account. However, two crucial aspects have been overlooked: the resulting stigmatisation and the underlying patriarchal structures.
Continue reading >>
Lifting the Veil? Oops, They Did it Again
From September 2026 onwards, girls up to the age of 14 will be prohibited from wearing Islamic headscarves in Austrian public and private schools. The girls’ freedom of religion, as well as the principle of equality and neutrality, pose significant obstacles to the constitutionality of such a selective restriction. However, in view of many reports from teachers and sociologists stating that the autonomy and determination of many girls’ identities in schools are increasingly threatened by societal forces, the Constitutional Court might reassess its jurisprudence and adapt it accordingly.
Continue reading >>
Headscarves and the Wrong Balance
To date, the CJEU has decided 6 cases concerning women who wanted to wear a headscarf at work. All judgments suggest that considerations of neutrality can trump religious freedom. Although the CJEU made some general and abstract comments about the importance of freedom of religion, it did not really address what the bans, in practice, meant for the individual women involved, neither did engage with the possibility that these neutrality rules could constitute sex, race and/or intersectional discrimination. The CJEU thus provide little protection for the rights of headscarf wearing Muslim women.
Continue reading >>
Playing with Fire
The Court of Justice’s narrow understanding of religious freedom under EU law is playing with fire. In the name of anti-discrimination and neutrality, it risks undermining religious freedom in ways that are particularly detrimental to Muslim minorities. At the same time, the Court proceeds as if European constitutional systems were roughly homogeneous, disregarding the profound diversity of church–state relations. This double-blind spot makes the CJEU’s approach not only normatively troubling, but structurally ill-suited to the realities it seeks to address.
Continue reading >>
In Good Faith
Debates over the role of religion in contemporary European constitutional orders have increasingly shifted from the national to the European level, placing EU law and the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice under sharper scrutiny. In our view, despite imperfections in the CJEU’s case law, the external and differentiated role of the Court and of EU law can challenge claims of self-referential sufficiency. EU law provides a mirror and necessitates a dialogue in which these convictions are tested and, where necessary, redefined.
Continue reading >>
Diskriminierende Einstellung(sbedingungen)en
Das Landesarbeitsgericht Berlin-Brandenburg hat jüngst entschieden, dass eine Neutralitätsklausel im Arbeitsvertrag eine kopftuchtragende Muslimin diskriminiere, und dieser eine Entschädigung zugesprochen. Das Besondere an dem Fall: Das Gericht stellte eine Diskriminierung durch eine vertragliche Neutralitätsklausel fest, obwohl die Bewerberin die Stelle freiwillig nicht angetreten hatte. Das Urteil stärkt die Religionsfreiheit im AGG und zeigt, dass die EuGH-Entscheidungen zu betrieblichen Kopftuchverboten nuancierte Anwendung im jeweiligen mitgliedstaatlichen Kontext finden.
Continue reading >>
The End of a Dream?
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may have officially declared war on the hijab in 2022, but the Hindu right’s battle strategy has been set in place since at least 2014 when the BJP rose to power under the leadership of Narendra Modi. A tenacious master of populism, the BJP has successfully altered the mainstream Hindu perception of the Muslim as a threat to secularism. Within this imaginary, Muslims are believed to constantly seek exemptions from the secular regulations constraining the Hindu community.
Continue reading >>
Jede hat ihr Kreuz zu tragen
Bayerische Behörden sind verpflichtet, „als Ausdruck der geschichtlichen und kulturellen Prägung Bayerns gut sichtbar ein Kreuz“ in ihrem Eingangsbereich anzubringen. So sieht es § 28 AGO vor, den das Bundesverwaltungsgericht (BVerwG) in seinem Urteil vom 19.12.2023 nach einer Klage unter anderem vom Bund für Geistesfreiheit (BfG) für rechtmäßig befunden hat. Soweit die Klage sich auf das Anbringen der Kreuze richtet, sei sie unbegründet. Eine Verletzung der Kläger*innen in ihren Rechten aus Art. 4 Abs. 1 und 2 GG wird zutreffend verneint, weil die Kläger*innen als Weltanschauungsgemeinschaften kein Recht auf Konfrontationsschutz haben. In den weiteren Punkten weicht die Argumentation des Gerichts indes nicht nur geradezu provokativ von etablierten verfassungsrechtlichen Maßstäben ab, sondern verstrickt sich dabei auch in Wertungswidersprüche.
Continue reading >>