A senior German court whose 1995 ruling has been
continuously relied on by the German government to justify discriminating
against members of the Church of Scientology in Germany has now ruled that
Church staff members work for idealistic purposes and spiritual improvement and
that no employer-employee relationship exists.
The Federal Labor Court in Erfurt in central Germany ruled against a former
member of the Church of Scientology in Berlin who had sought to use a 1995
interim decision by the Court to claim that the Church owed him 320,000 Euros
in backlogged wages. When challenged by American officials, human rights
bodies and media, German officials have repeatedly cited the 1995 decision as
defense for their human rights violations against Scientologists -- despite
more than 35 decisions by other German courts recognizing Scientology as a
religion. The Church has documented moe than 1,500 governmental violations of
its parishioners' rights in Germany, many described at http://humanrightswatchgermany.org.
The Court has now rendered its previous decision useless for
German officials by ruling that "the plaintiff [Church worker] was not
following with his activities the aim of gainful employment, but was seeking
idealistic purposes and his own spiritual perfection through the teachings
of scientology." The Court pointed out that Church of Scientology
workers enjoy freedoms not normally part of an employer-employee relationship,
such as the right to contribute to the creation of church activities.
The Court cited a landmark decision of November 1997 by Germany's Federal
Administrative Court. Ruling in favor of a Mission of Scientology in
Stuttgart and against the government of the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg,
the court held that Scientology's religious practices are intended for
spiritual gain and have no commercial purpose.
Commenting on this week's decision, Church of Scientology President Heber
C. Jentzsch said: "For seven years the German government has cited
that single 1995 Federal Labor Court ruling to the exclusion of dozens of
others in our favor, to justify continuing violations of the rights of German
Scientologists. Now the very Court the government has consistently relied
on has acknowledged that dedicated church staff are motivated by idealistic and
spiritual aims. The government has no arguments left. I urge German
officials to live up to the democratic principle of respect for religious
belief and end the discrimination against Scientologists."
The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report, released
earlier this month, again criticized the German government for discriminating
against Scientologists. Also this month, three members of churches of
Scientology in Germany filed a formal complaint against Germany to the United
Nations Human Rights Committee over their exclusion from a mainstream political
party in Germany solely because of their religion.
Scientology has been officially recognized as a religion in countries including
the United States, Sweden, Portugal, South Africa and Australia. As the
complaint notes, hundreds of administrative and judicial decisions, including
in Germany, have acknowledged Scientology as a religious community.