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Contemporary Concepts of Religious Neutrality in Germany
The sixteen individual states of the Federal Republic of Germany enjoy so-called federal-state rights regarding education, culture, or religion.1 Between 2004 and 2007, half of the German states passed laws restricting expressions of religious identity in the public sphere. Many of them, for example, those in Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saarland, explicitly targeted Islamic practices in public office. These laws forbid all expressions of religious identity except for Christian ones (in North Rhine-Westphalia, Christian and Jewish ones2). The discrimination of non-Christians is evident in these cases since these laws privilege Christianity at the expense of other religions, such as Islam.3 Following the lawsuit of a Muslim woman from North Rhine-Westphalia, who had been denied a job at a public school because of her headscarf,4 the Federal Constitutional Court proclaimed in January 2015 that a general ban on headscarves for teachers at state schools is not compatible with the federal constitution.5 Since German federal law takes precedence over state law, North Rhine-Westphalia had to suspend its law.6
This 2015 decision by the Federal Constitutional Court nullified the North Rhine-Westphalia law. Nevertheless, it did not affect the other laws restricting religious displays in public office, such as Berlin's, since the latter, according to its wording at least, does not differentiate between religions. Berlin's neutrality law forbids all expressions of religious identity in public office categorically: "The City-State of Berlin is obliged to be neutral in questions of religious and world views. For this reason, employees of the City-State of Berlin must refrain from expressing their religious views in areas where citizens are in a special way subject to the state's influence."7 The legislation bars all public-school teachers, including kindergarten teachers in the case of objections from parents, as well as police officers, judges, court officials, prison guards, district attorneys, and civil servants working in the judicial system, from performing religious or ideological identities. The same law rules out discrimination based on religion.8
The law was passed in 2005 to protect the so-called religious neutrality of the state, which is defined by Berlin lawmakers as the abandonment of expressions of religious identity.9 According to Jan Stöß, leader of the Berlin...