HUMAN RIGHTS judges have ruled that a Catholic parish in Germany
violated the rights of a church organist when it dismissed him for
adultery and bigamy.
The organist later found part-time work in a Protestant church.
In
a judgment handed down yesterday, the European Court of Human Rights in
Strasbourg upheld the complaint that the man’s right to respect for
private and family life was breached when he was sacked by the parish of
St Lambert in Essen.
Bernhard Schüth (53) was the organist and
choirmaster in the parish from the mid-1980s. He separated from his wife
in 1994 and lived with his new partner from 1995.
After his children
spoke in kindergarten about him becoming a father again, the dean of the
parish held a meeting with him.
A few days later he was informed
of his dismissal, to take effect nine months later, for breaching basic
regulations on employment. By engaging in an extra-marital relationship
with a woman expecting a child by him, he had not only committed
adultery but also bigamy.
The Essen labour court declared his
dismissal void.
But a federal court later quashed its judgment, saying
an appeal court should have heard the dean of the parish to establish
whether he had tried to induce Mr Schüth to end his extra-marital
relationship.
An appeal court overturned the first ruling, saying
the parish could not continue employing him without losing all
credibility, as his activity was closely connected to the church’s
mission.
Further appeals by Mr Schüth were to no avail, and a
constitutional complaint was dismissed. Key to the constitutional ruling
was a precedent holding that the labour courts in such cases were bound
by principles of church religious and moral precepts that were in
keeping with state law.
The Strasbourg court’s ruling is that he
received inadequate treatment from the German courts.
“The interests of
the church employer had thus not been balanced against Mr Schüth’s right
to respect for his private and family life, but only against his
interest in keeping his post,” the court said.
The court accepted
that in signing the employment contract, Mr Schüth had entered into a
duty of loyalty towards the Catholic Church, which limited his right to
respect for his private life to a certain degree.
However, his signature
on the contract could not be interpreted as an undertaking to live a
life of abstinence in the event of separation or divorce.
“The
German labour courts had given only marginal consideration to the fact
that Mr Schüth’s case had not received media coverage and that, after 14
years of service for the parish, he did not appear to have challenged
the position of the Catholic Church.”
The Strasbourg court found
in a related ruling the rights of a Mormon public relations director,
Michael Obst, were not violated when he was dismissed after confessing
to adultery.
The conclusion that he had not been subject to unacceptable
obligations was reasonable, as he should have been aware when signing
the employment contract of the importance of marital fidelity for his
employer.
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