The German Federal Constitutional Court, Secularism and Policy Implementation: An analysis of the court's understanding of secularism using the example of judgments on the wearing of religious headscarves in the public sector

This article deals with the German Federal Constitutional Court's judgments on the wearing of religious headscarves while working in the public sector. The aim is to find out what kind of secularism the Federal Constitutional Court represents and to what extent it wants to proactively set this as policy or whether it refrains from making binding statements and leaves more room for the democratically legitimized legislature. In order to do this, there will be a dual examination of the court's judgments on this issue since the year 2000. First, the published reasons for the decisions will be used to qualitatively determine which of the various types of secularism (according to Charles Taylor) the Federal Constitutional Court represents and to what extent changes have occurred. In a next step, the criteria of the JUDICON project will be used to determine and compare the effect and scope of the judgments on the basis of the "tenor" and further formulated requirements of the judgments. Does the Court oblige the legislator to implement its understanding of secularism? Particularly in the area of religious constitutional law, it is interesting to find out whether the Federal Constitutional Court practices judicial policy or judicial self-restraint, since in this area the legislature is accused of not wanting to make controversial decisions and increasingly leaving the shaping of the law to the courts. Also relevant is how the court deals with Islam, whose relationship to democracy has been the subject of controversial debate over the past two decades. Does it take into account societal expectations in its decisions, or does it give greater weight to the fundamental rights of the civil servants concerned who wear a religious headscarf? The study aims to fill the various research gaps in the field of political science research on the Federal Constitutional Court.