“Legitimate to ban Islamic veils in schools.” ECHR ruling agrees with Flemish education system

Brussels – The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that it is legitimate to ban the wearing of visible religious symbols at school, such as the Islamic veil. Thus, the judges agreed with the education system in Flanders, Belgium, and declared the three Muslim students’ appeal in Strasbourg inadmissible.

This is a hotly felt issue in Flanders, where, according to the statistical yearbook of the education system for the academic year 2022-23, Muslim students represent about 17 per cent of the Flemish school population for the primary level and about 22 per cent for the secondary level. Since 2009, to comply with the principle of neutrality in the Constitution, the Flemish Community Education Council has decided to extend the ban on wearing visible symbols of one’s beliefs throughout its network.

Despite being aware of the ban at the time of their daughters’ enrollment, the parents of the three young girls filed a case against the Board of Education in 2017, which eventually landed at the ECHR. The plaintiffs argued that the ban on wearing the Islamic veil violated their rights and freedoms guaranteed by Articles 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to respect for private and family life), 9 (freedom of thought, conscience, and religion), 10 (freedom of expression) of the Convention and Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 (right to education) of the Convention, taken individually and in conjunction with Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination).

While appeals for violation of Articles 8, 10 and 14 of the Convention and Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 were ruled inadmissible for failure to exhaust internal remedies, with regard to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the Strasbourg Court ruled that “the concept of neutrality in the community education system, understood as a general prohibition on pupils wearing visible symbols of their beliefs, is not in itself contrary to Article 9 of the European Convention” on Human Rights “and the values underlying it.”

The same concept had been put in black and white by the Court of Justice of the European Union last November, ruling on the case of a Belgian citizen of the Muslim faith who was banned from wearing a veil by the municipality in which she is employed, due to a policy of neutrality imposed on all staff. The blanket ban, which applies “indiscriminately to all visible symbols”—and thus also, for example, to the Christian crucifix or the Jewish kippah—ensures that the rule is “proportionate to the objectives pursued, namely the protection of the rights and freedoms of others and public order.” Ultimately, “necessary in a democratic society.”