A company that prohibits its employees from "visibly wearing religious, philosophical or spiritual signs" is not discriminating against anyone .
This was established by the European Court of Justice, specifying that such an internal rule "does not constitute direct discrimination if applied in a general and indiscriminate manner".
The ruling refers to the case of a Belgian woman of Muslim faith who was denied an internship contract for expressing her refusal to take off her veil to comply with the company's neutrality policy.
The Luxembourg judges observe that "religion and belief must be regarded as one and only ground of discrimination, otherwise undermining the general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation established by EU law" .
The Court specifies that, under Community law, "a provision of a company working regulation which prohibits employees from expressing verbally, in clothing or in any other way, their religious or philosophical convictions, of any type, does not constitute, with respect to employees who intend to exercise their freedom of religion and conscience by visibly wearing a sign or a garment with a religious connotation, direct discrimination 'based on religion or on personal beliefs', provided that the provision is applied in a general and indiscriminate way ".
In fact - it is explained -, "since every person can have a religion or religious, philosophical or spiritual convictions, a rule of this kind, provided that it is applied in a general and indiscriminate way, does not establish a difference in treatment based on an inseparably linked to religion or such personal beliefs ".
(Unioneonline / D)