Monday May 7,2007
Muslim veils can be outlawed from school classrooms, head teachers were told last night.
The Government’s legal chief confirmed that the full-face
niqab can be justifiably ruled out on the grounds of school uniform
policy.
Lord Falconer, a Cabinet minister, said that this also included
other Islamic religious garments such as the full-length jilbab gown. He claimed
that common sense rather than concerns about human rights should govern what
pupils wear to school.
His declaration to a head teachers’ conference
yesterday will be welcomed by the profession and many parents.
A
spokesman for the National Association of Head Teachers said: “A return to
common sense has been our policy all along. Uniform policy should be worked out
in consultation with an entire community, not based on the interests of one
section.”
Common sense and human rights are in line
But critics of the Government’s Human Rights Act
questioned why schools have had to face massive legal battles to uphold uniform
policy.
Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “The
Human Rights Act has nothing to do with common sense. It’s no wonder that
teachers are left so confused by these issues.”
Lord Falconer, the Lord
Chancellor who is a close friend of Tony Blair, told the head teachers’ national
conference that he backed the decision of a Luton school to stop Muslim pupil
Shabina Begum from wearing a jilbab gown to class.
The teenager took
legal action against Denbigh High School in 2002, citing the right to “freedom
of thought, religion and expression.”
She won an earlier ruling at the Court of Appeal that her
human rights had been violated when she was told by a teacher to go home and
change into a uniform approved by the school.
But Law Lords last year
ruled that the school had been justified in its decision.
“The case
showed how uniform can be a difficult issue and one where head teachers and the
school’s governing body have to think extremely carefully,” said the Lord
Chancellor.
“But more than that, it showed that common sense and human
rights are entirely in line with each other.
“The case supports my
argument that the head teacher, acting properly and sensibly, is going to be in
line with the Human Rights Act.
“There was no breach of human rights, or
of the Human Rights Act, because a common-sense decision had been
made.”
In another case this year, a Muslim classroom assistant sacked for
refusing to remove her full-face veil lost a legal case claiming
discrimination.
Aishah Azmi was told not to wear the veil after pupils at
Headfield Church of England School in Dewsbury, West Yorks, said they could not
understand her. Mrs Azmi, 24, refused to remove her niqab and was suspended. She
was later sacked from her £15,000-a-year job after an employment tribunal ruled
she was not the victim of discrimination.
In his speech, Lord Falconer
said: “My message is a simple one. Human rights are common sense.
“If you
have to deal with human rights issues and you find yourself being drawn,
by circumstances or by advice, into decisions or actions which seem to you not
common sense, then my guidance to you is: Stop. That is what the Act allows for.
That is what the guidance promotes. That is what the courts have repeatedly
upheld.”
But Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Attorney General, said: “The Lord
Chancellor is ignoring reality if he glosses over the fact that the Human Rights
Act has encouraged challenges of the kind we have seen.
“It’s very
important that human rights should be seen by the public as being rooted in
common sense. When that doesn’t happen it brings the system into disrepute.”
Tory backbencher Philip Davies said: “Lord Falconer is going round with his eyes
closed if he can’t see the trouble the Human Rights Act is causing.
“It
has undermined the right of just about everyone to make sensible decisions with
this Act hanging over them.”
Earlier this year, the Education Department
sent out guidance to schools advising them that full-face veils could be banned
under uniform
rules.