Das Tragen religiöser Symbole unter der Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention

In S.A.S. v France, the ECHR recognized a new ground to justify interference with the freedom of religious expression. The Court confirmed the French ban of the burka and considers open-face communication an indispensable requirement of »living together« that qualifies as »rights and freedoms of others« within the meaning of Article 9 para. 2 ECHR. This article questions the Court's expansion of existing grounds of justification. There is no basis for sociocultural considerations to qualify as protection of the »rights and freedoms of others«. This article reviews the grounds of justification in light of the evolution of the Court's jurisprudence on the wearing of religious symbols. Public se curity and order, health and improper proselytism are well-established reasons for interference to the extent that they protect individual rights. The Court's recognition of se cularism as ground for interference illuminates the ambiguity of the terms pluralism and tolerance as referred to in case-law. The article finds that the Court's jurisprudence on se cularism gave leeway to Member States in regulating religious expression and paved the way for the Court's new approach under which sociocultural norms may be used to ban face-covering religious cloth. Furthermore, the doctrine of the margin of appreciation does not justify the expansion of the legitimate aims pursued under Article 9 para. 2 ECHR.