Legal disputes around freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) and the right not to be discriminated against at the workplace have arisen in many countries in Europe. While developing their approaches to the ratio of freedom from discrimination and the ability of private employers to restrict the manifestations of employees’ identity, legislators, courts, and business communities of those countries have to follow or take into account standards and recommendations developed by international organizations they participate in, and the relevant courts, including the Council of Europe (CoE), the European Union (EU members), European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), Court of Justice of the European Union. However, the approaches to FoRB, non-discrimination, and Employment developed by those entities are vague and sometimes contradict each other.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the legal frameworks of the abovementioned institutions to ensure the freedom of religion and beliefs in the workplace, and the inconsistency between them, which causes its incorrect applications used by state and private employers. The work proposes a possible approach to solving the problems of different judicial interpretations of international acts, namely the implementation of the requirement of the minimum standard for the protection of human rights, which will set general and basic criteria that employers must be observed when creating certain restrictions on expressing employees’ religious identity.

Resolution 2318 (2020) adopted by CoE on “The protection of freedom of religion or belief in the workplace” calls to “promote a “living together” in a religiously pluralist society”. Recently, the CJEU concluded that only an absolute prohibition on all visible forms of expression of political, philosophical, or religious beliefs which also concerns religious clothing at work can ensure a policy of neutrality at the workplace without discrimination. Hence, the concepts of “living together” and “living environment” take on different meanings in EU and CoE regulations and judicial decisions and are interpretednot as the original idea of religious pluralism, but as an excuse to restrict the right to freedom of religion to ensure a policy of neutrality and non-discrimination. This line of argumentation is sometimes supported by gender-equality arguments but this approach often completely eliminates the consideration of the needs of religious people and, especially religious women, which are an integral part of their identity, and, thus, can significantly restrict or deprive them of access to the employment market.

These concerns and complexities also invigorate the role of corporate responsibility in protecting FoRB and non-discrimination at the workplace. In this context, a coherent doctrine of the interpretation of these categories by international institutions is important, as can ensure exclude the possibility of employers implementing “absolute neutrality policies” that automatically forbid any manifestations of religious identity.

Bibliography

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Journal articles

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21. Vickers L, ‘Achbita and Bougnaoui: One Step Forward and Two Steps Back for Religious Diversity in the Workplace’ (2017) 8(3) European Labour Law Journal (in English).

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