Religious discrimination at the workplace : an ever-increasing legal controversy in Europe in light of the recent cases of Achbita and Bougnaoui

Abstract

The interpretation of freedom of religion and its manifestation is a source of constant controversy due to an exceedingly pluralistic European society. This led to various conflicts which arose in front of the European Court of Human Rights; particularly to the wearing of religious symbols or clothing at the workplace; and which will be analysed in Section 4 of this legal term paper. Nevertheless, the latter issue has only recently arisen before the Court of Justice of the European Union in Samira Achbita & Another v. G4S Secure Solutions NV and Asma Bougnaoui & Another v. Micropole SA, which concern religious discrimination with regards to the wearing of religious clothing and symbols at work in accordance to Equality Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000. The latter two CJEU cases, together with their respective and contradictory AGs‘ opinions, will be thoroughly analysed in Section 5. This will pave the way for Section 6, wherein the author will attempt to identify how such an issue would be approached in Malta, after having put the issue into the context of said MS, whose Constitution declares the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion as the State‘s religion. The aforementioned issue at work has not, yet, arisen in Malta in front of the domestic Courts and thus the latter Section will take into consideration a hypothetical question by referring to various legal instruments, such as, the ECHR, Equality Directive 2000/78 as transposed in domestic legislation and other relevant national legislations, whilst also alluding to UK case law due to this State‘s similarity to Malta‘s employment legal regime.