Legal opinion in Austria rules headscarf ban for schoolgirls unconstitutional

A legal opinion commissioned by the Islamic Religious Community in Austria concludes that a regulation prohibiting girls under the age of 14 from wearing headscarves in school is unconstitutional.

According to a 21-page report published on Tuesday on the Muslim representative body’s website, the rule set to take effect in schools in September violates the principle of religious and ideological neutrality.

The Islamic Religious Community had already announced, following the Austrian Parliament’s vote, that it would challenge the law before the Constitutional Court.

The legal opinion was prepared by Markus Vasek, head of the Department of Legal Protection and Administrative Control at Johannes Kepler University Linz.

Vasek’s constitutional assessment was centered on the principle of equality.

An earlier attempt to ban headscarves, introduced in 2019 by the then-government coalition of the Austrian People’s Party and the Freedom Party of Austria, was struck down by the Constitutional Court.

In 2020, the court had argued that the regulation affected only a specific group of female students and therefore violated the principle of equality.

The latest proposal by the current coalition government—comprising the Austrian People’s Party, the Austrian Social Democrats, and the liberal Neos—now targeting girls under 14, once again focuses exclusively on the Islamic headscarf.

This time, however, it has been restricted to wearing a headscarf as an “expression of a cultural obligation of honor,” though Vasek’s expert opinion states:

“As a result, the legislation has greatly expanded the group of people affected by unequal treatment, so that while the intent to selectively target remains selective with regard to the religion in question, the scope of the targeting is now broader.”

According to the legal expert, the new law treats female students who wear headscarves as “a monolithic bloc lacking cognitive maturity and emotional abstract thinking.”

Vasek concludes that the new ban also violates the constitutional requirement of religious and ideological neutrality.