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Praying at university

ARE MUSLIM STUDENTS ALLOWED TO PRAY AT A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY AND DO THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO ESTABLISH A PRAYER ROOM?

Summarized: Muslim students may pray at university as a principle. The place of prayer must be picked in a way that others do not coincidentally or purposefully have to come in confrontation with the prayer. The students don’t have a claim to the establishment of a prayer room. 

Public universities, or rather faculties, are organized as a body of public law as a rule.1 They take on public duties and are bound by the fundamental rights defined in Article 1, paragraph 3 of the German Constitution because of them being part of the state administration.2  

The legal situation of the university is therefore comparable to the one of a school (see here). During the verdict regarding prayer at school, the Federal Administrative Court made it clear that freedom of religion according to Article 4 of the German Constitution is to be understood as an extensive fundamental right.3 An individual can invoke their right to freedom of religion if they can present a sufficiently plausible case that the fard prayer is a commandment of the faith that is binding on them.4

The negative religious freedom of others is principally not affected by prayer.5 It is true that the fundamental right of freedom of religion under Article 4 of the German Constitution also gives rise to a right not to be forcibly confronted with religion (so-called negative freedom of religion).6 A person, however, does not have the right to remain completely untouched by the exposure to foreign expressions of faith and religious acts and symbols. An occupied lecture hall would therefore be an unsuitable place to pray, whereas a lesser-used floor could be considered as appropriate. 

Prayer does not ultimately go against the state’s obligation to neutrality.7 This obligation to neutrality does require the state to implement ideological and religious neutrality.8 The state therefore cannot identify itself with, give special privilege to or act exclusionary towards any religion. This obligation is, however, not to be regarded as a distancing between the state and church, rather as an open and inclusionary attitude which promotes all religions equally. Allowing prayer to be performed at school is neither partial behavior on part of the state it's identification with the Islamic faith and therefore doesn’t violate the state’s obligation to neutrality. 

The right to set up a prayer room doesn’t derive itself from the right to pray.9 Only in the case where a university is allowed to prohibit prayer on its grounds (for example due to any impairments on the university peace) must it be checked beforehand, in the light of the ruling on prayer in schools, whether a prayer room can be set up as a ‘milder measure’ to avoid a general ban on praying.10


1 V.d. Decken, in: Schmidt-Bleibtreu/Hofmann/Henneke, Grundgesetz, 14. Ed. 2018, Art. 5 margin 46. 

2 Müller-Franken in Schmidt-Bleibtreu/Hofmann/Henneke, Grundgesetz-Kommentar, 14. Ed. 2018, preliminary remarks of Art. 1 margin. 37. 

3 Federal Administrative Court, case from 30.11.2011, 6 C 20.10, margin 18.

4 See above, margin 19.

5 See above, margin 29.

6 See above, margin 30. 

7 See above, margin 34.

8 See above, margin 35.

9 See above, margin 23.

10 See above, margin 57.

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