[nauru]

I was reading about "sect filters" which apparently German government agencies use to eliminate employment candidates whose religions they don't like or don't recognize. Is there any truth to this? Sound crazy, but I just wanted to double check.

 

[James3214]

I would probably guess that there is some sort of personal checks on anyone working in public bodies in most countries and not just here in Germany. As long as they are not breaking the law there is no problem. But ask yourself why you would want to belong to one anyway?

 

[nauru]

Umm...

I would probably guess that in most western industrialised countries there is some sort of fundamental law that prevents employers from discriminating against job applicants based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion... at least that's the way it is in most western industrialised countries not just the UK, US, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, France, etc. I would not have expected Germany, typically a leader on labour and gender equity related issues, to be a laggard/exception in this regard.

As for your question about personal reasons for belonging to or abstaining from one or more religions. lol. hard to believe this is being asked in the year 2012. Surely you don't consider it normal for a western government to openly discriminate against all potential employees based on the personal characteristics mentioned above? I see you are originally from the UK; I thought the British government outlawed that sort of discrimination decades ago, along with other western nations.

United Kingdom employment equality law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And I also thought equality was enshrined in some part of EU law, probably as one of the fundamental bases for the entire EU legal framework... but admittedly I'm not that familiar with EU law.

 

[James3214]

Sorry, I better make it clear I was talking about 'Sects' not 'Religions' which you mention. Germany is no different to the other EU countries with regards to discrimination.

 

[vronchen]

The idea is that you should not be part of any sect. I don't think they exclude anyone with
a specific religion (that would be against the constitution).

 

[nauru]

So who decides what is acceptable as a religion and what is not acceptable (and relegated to the status of "sect")? Some bureaucrat?

Honestly I've never heard of another industrialised western nation doing such a thing in modern times.

 

[ALKB]

So who decides what is acceptable as a religion and what is not acceptable (and relegated to the status of "sect")? Some bureaucrat?

Honestly I've never heard of another industrialised western nation doing such a thing in modern times.

How did you hear about this?

As per law, a prospective employer (including government bodies) cannot ask you about your religious affiliation. The only exception is if the employer himself is part of one of the state churches (catholic or lutheran), they only employ a member of one of the two state churches.

The employer´s HR department will ask upon setting up your account whether you are a member of one of the state churches, for the purpose of paying church tax where applicable. The employee just has to say 'no' and does not have to reveal whether they are an atheist, jewish, muslim or adheres to any other sort of faith.

A servant of the state can be a member of any religion but is not allowed to actively mission, especially not in his capacity as a servant of the state, as people might feel pressured to join.

We do have separation of church and state (which I feel is a bit muddled because of the state collecting tax for the catholic and the lutheran church) but there is really no way to check on somebody´s religion anyhow, it´s not like it´s documented anywhere if you don´t actively pursue this.

There is advanced security clearance for a lot of government jobs, as there are in most countries, but that relates more to criminal records and possible affiliation to organised crime, terrorist groups, etc.