VfGH decision: Constitutional Court lifts veil ban

The Constitutional Court (VfGH) orally announced its decision on the request for a coverage ban in elementary schools on Friday.

AUSTRIA. The so-called ban on the headscarf in elementary schools was lifted as unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court on Friday. “It is the Risoko that makes it difficult for Muslim girls to access or exclude them,” said VfGH President Christoph Grabenwarter. The Constitutional Court justified the decision that the regulation singles out a certain religion, Islam, without further justification, which contradicts the requirement of religious and ideological neutrality of the State.

Ban under the ÖVP-FPÖ government

The controversial law was passed during the turquoise blue federal government and introduced in elementary schools in 2019. Since then, elementary school students have been prohibited from wearing “clothing of ideological or religious influence that is associated with head covering.” The ban does not explicitly refer to wearing an Islamic headscarf, Grabenwarter read the rationale for VfGH However, the legislature’s intention is expressed that the wearing of an Islamic veil be specifically prohibited.

This was caused by two cases in Vienna in which hijab-wearing girls had gone to class. The lifting of the ban required that two children and their parents be educated according to the Sunni or Shiite legal school of Islam. They saw it as disproportionate interference with religious freedom and religious education, as well as a violation of the principle of equality because the hijab was prohibited, but the Jewish kippah or the patka of the Sikhs was not.

IGGÖ: VfGH ends populist prohibition policy

The Islamic Faith Community (IGGÖ) saw that the ban violated religious freedom and the parental prerogative to education. “The decision of the Constitutional Court shows that our confidence in the rule of law and our patience have paid off,” IGGÖ President Ümit Vura said in a broadcast on the VfGH ruling on Friday. But he emphasized from the beginning that the complaint was not intended to defend the premature use of a headscarf by children or the coercion of parents in this regard. “The implementation of equal opportunities and self-determination for girls and women in our society is not achieved through prohibitions,” said the president of IGGÖ, “but through the strengthening of human, women’s and children’s rights and promoting the awareness that coercion is never permissible. ” it is. “

The decision on euthanasia will be made on Friday.

On Friday, the VfGH will also announce its findings on euthanasia.

More about the subject:

Council of Europe experts call for a review of the veil ban

“The handkerchief is not the problem”

“The handkerchief has a strong influence on identity” – sociologist Kenan Güngör in an interview with WOCHE