A Muslim lawyer in Germany, who considers the headscarf a religious obligation, has lost her case to join the judiciary in Hesse after a court ruled that the state may bar judges and public prosecutors from wearing religious garments while interacting with parties in legal proceedings.
Welt reported on Tuesday that the Darmstadt Administrative Court had dismissed the woman’s challenge to the Justice Ministry’s decision to reject her application for judicial or prosecutorial service.
Under Hesse’s rules, judges and prosecutors may not wear religiously connoted clothing in hearings or other interactions with participants in a case, a restriction the ministry argued was necessary to uphold ideological and religious neutrality.
According to court documents published on Monday, the applicant had made clear during the recruitment process that she would not remove her headscarf when appearing in court. The ministry, therefore, concluded that hiring her would conflict with both the neutrality requirement and the proper functioning of the justice system. Officials also argued that the presence of a religious symbol in court could infringe upon the negative freedom of religion of those appearing before the bench.
“From the perspective of an objective observer, the wearing of an Islamic headscarf by a judge or public prosecutor during a trial could be considered an infringement of the state’s ideological and religious neutrality,” the ruling read.
The decision effectively bars the lawyer from judicial or prosecutorial service in Hesse. The panel acknowledged the severity of that consequence but emphasized that she had applied “voluntarily and with full knowledge of the existing regulations.”
The ruling still remains subject to any potential appeal.
It follows a ruling in the German state of Saxony in October, where a lay judge was removed from office because she insisted on wearing a hijab in court. The Braunschweig Higher Regional Court also ruled on that occasion that the judge was violating the state’s requirement of neutrality.
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