On 14 March, by way of two cases, one French and the other Belgian, the Court of Justice of the European Union has clarified its interpretation of EU law against discrimination over the wearing of visible religious signs in the workplace. The Luxembourg judges recognized that companies can adopt a neutral workplace policy as regards political, philosophy and religion belief that results in banning headscarves. However the judges also recognized that a customer request not to professionally engage with an employee wearing a headscarf does not justify banning employees from wearing what are religiously significant headscarves.
Neutral policy. In the first case (a Belgian case) * a female receptionist was laid off after she refused to remove her headscarf, contravening the company’s (G4S) regulations that ban the wearing of any outward indications of political, philosophical, or religious belief. The receptionist brought her case to the Belgian courts that turned to the CJEU for its ruling on Directive 2000/78 which prohibits all discrimination in the workplace based on religious belief.
In the CJEU’s ruling the court
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