The complaint was filed with the Federal Constitutional Court under file number 1 BvR 1661/2 for two years, and then a decision was made. Rejection without reason. The full hardness. There was nothing in the extraordinary legal remedy with which the Berlin Senate wanted to preserve its neutrality law. It fared like thousands of constitutional complaints every year, including those from troublemakers. If the Senate were honest, they would have to say: We knew that. We wanted to save time.
Politically, the procedure may be understandable, legally not. The executive power is bound by law and order, says the Basic Law. Constitutional complaints, such as those raised by the school administration against a judgment by the Federal Labor Court (BAG) in 2020, have no suspensive effect.
The BAG, which granted monetary compensation to a teacher applicant who had been rejected because of her headscarf, had issued a final judgment. Berlin would have been obliged to follow him. It hasn’t. Everyone who took part – above all the Governing Mayor – ignored the legal obligations of the administration. You still ignore them. Otherwise, the school administration would have immediately declared that applicants would be accepted immediately despite the headscarf. Instead it says talk it over. There’s nothing to talk about here.
In the case of female police officers, the constitutional situation is uncertain. The blanket ban in Berlin has at least one problem: it’s blanket.
Jost Müller-Neuhof
Paragraph two of the neutrality law, which regulates the ban on religious symbols for teachers, has been done away with. Paragraph one is more interesting. It concerns the ban in the judiciary and the police. The Federal Constitutional Court has already decided that headscarves can be banned for female judges. But it doesn’t have to. In the case of female police officers, the constitutional situation is uncertain. The blanket ban in Berlin has at least one problem: it’s blanket. Many policewomen do not wear a uniform and are rarely present in the job for citizens. How can a blanket ban be justified here?
It looks like this shouldn’t be an issue either before or after the election. Politicians only have paragraph two in mind, the end of which was sealed by the courts anyway. Otherwise you wait for police applicants who complain through the authorities. The judiciary remains alone with the headscarf issue. Politics has slipped away.
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Source: Tagesspiegel
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