Swedish court docket OVERTURNS Staffanstorp schoolgirl hijab ban, indicating it denies ‘freedom of expression’

Sweden’s Supreme Court docket has reversed the schoolgirl scarf ban handed by the municipality of Staffanstorp in 2019, arguing that it contravenes liberty of expression regulations.

Staffanstorp, in the county of Skåne, southern Sweden, the place the Moderates rule in coalition with the considerably-right Sweden Democrats, wanted to bar youngsters from wearing headscarves in preschools and major educational facilities up to yr six, properly banning kids underneath 12. 

In Skurup, one more municipality run by the Sweden Democrats, politicians experienced pushed for a ban for children and staff in preschools and primary universities. 

Parliament has previously shut down proposals to ban headscarves.

The Supreme Courtroom alternatively made use of Sweden’s flexibility of expression regulation to back up its ruling, stating that expressions of religious affiliation, this kind of as apparel, are covered by this

The parliament’s committee on the structure has said that it has no designs for laws banning the product of clothes, either for little ones in individual educational facilities or in wider modern society.

Each Skåne municipalities have been pursuing the headscarf situation for many many years.

In a preceding decision, the Administrative Court docket explained the headscarf ban the two municipalities needed to carry out contravenes equally the European Conference on Human Legal rights and protections on spiritual liberty less than Swedish constitutional laws.

The Supreme Court alternatively employed Sweden’s freedom of expression law to back up its ruling, stating that expressions of religious affiliation, such as apparel, are lined by this.

‘Limiting the appropriate to put on a scarf has results on folks and is therefore a limitation of independence of expression,’ Justice Ulrik von Essen mentioned in a push launch, as noted by The Local Sweden. 

‘For the limitation to be permitted, it need to be supported by regulation. These types of authorized guidance is missing in countrywide legislation and thus the municipalities’ decision will have to be annulled,’ he explained.

The parliament’s committee on the structure has stated that it has no programs for laws banning the merchandise of outfits, either for children in specific educational facilities or in wider culture

Staffanstorp’s vote to ban headscarves in 2019 shaped element of an ‘integration plan’ for the town, which was drawn up by the centre-ideal Reasonable Social gathering and the populist Sweden Democrats.

‘The headscarf is a image that women of all ages are not out there. It really is a sexualisation of ladies and it truly is unreasonable to do that to young girls,’ Christian Sonesson, the town’s Average Get together mayor, told the neighborhood Sydsvenskan newspaper at the time. 

‘I have almost nothing in opposition to adult women of all ages donning headscarves, but these are smaller small children, small women.’

Seven out of 11 voted in favour of the measure in Might 2019.

Pierre Sjöström, a councillor for the town’s Social Democrat opposition stated Sonesson was ‘foregrounding a non-problem’.

‘It’s just beauty. The Moderates you should not even know if we have pupils who wear headscarves. This is a resolution to a trouble that we never have,’ he told the newspaper.

Speaking to Swedish broadcaster SR, Andreas Lindholm, a law firm for the Swedish Countrywide Agency for Instruction, argued the measure was religious discrimination and as a result contravened the law.

In February 2017 the Swedish govt was forced to defend its final decision to have its officials put on headscarves throughout a vacation to Iran, declaring that failing to do so would have broken the legislation.

Trade Minister Ann Linde led a company crew that thirty day period and was criticised by Swedish politicians for wearing the item.