The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that a decision taken by a French hospital not to renew a Muslim worker’s contract of employment because she refused to remove her headscarf whilst at work did not breach the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The decision not to renew her contract was based on an existing government ban on public employees displaying their religious beliefs while discharging the functions of their employment. Despite the government ban and having received complaints from patients concerning her headscarf, the appellant, Ms. Ebrahimian, continued to wear it at work citing her right to freedom of religion. However in its ruling, the Court held that there had been no violation of Article 9, freedom of religion, of the ECHR by the French authorities in giving precedence to the principle of secularism under Article 1 of the French Constitution, and the requirement of neutrality on public officials which derived from that principle.
The Court referred to deliberations of the French national courts, which held that the ban was necessary to uphold the secular character of the state. The need to protect the rights and liberties of others in respecting everyone’s religion and removing any risk of influence over patients in their own freedom of conscience formed the rationale behind the decision taken by the hospital not to renew her contract of employment.
The Court held that French authorities had not exceeded their margin of appreciation in finding that Ms. Ebrahimian’s religious convictions and her obligation to refrain from publicly manifesting these convictions as a public servant could not be reconciled, and in ultimately giving precedence to the requirement of impartiality and neutrality of the state over her freedom of religion.
The ECtHR has previously upheld a ban on face-covering veils imposed by the French government in a judgment delivered in 2014. In its 2014 ruling the Court stated that covering one’s face in public could threaten the French model of integration and assimilation and could also be considered “anti-social behaviour”.
Click here to read the full judgment (in French).
Click here to read the 2014 ECtHR judgment.