Luxembourg/Administrative Tribunal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg /N° 44025

Country

Luxembourg

Title

Luxembourg/Administrative Tribunal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg /N° 44025

View full Case

Year

2022

Decision/ruling/judgment date

Friday, July 29, 2022

Incident(s) concerned/related

Discrimination

Related Bias motivation

Religion

Groups affected

Muslims

Court/Body type

National Court

Court/Body

Administrative Tribunal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (fourth chamber)[Tribunal administratif du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg (4e chambre)]

Key facts of the case

On the 5th of November 2019, the Director-General of the public company POST Luxembourg applied a disciplinary sanction of revocation to a worker who was considered guilty, among others, of harassing, discriminating and disrespecting and external employee of the company. The worker lodged an appeal on the 15th of January 2020 seeking the alteration or, in the alternative, the annulment of the decision from the Director-General. Following an assessment of the credibility of the facts, the Administrative Tribunal concluded that the worker had inserted images in the desktop of an external employee showing a vibrator and, on one occasion, slaughtered pigs bathed in their blood; had thrown clay bubbles at him; used the expressions Taliban or terrorist to refer to him during a discussion; and said, upon the external employee’s return from leave, that his skin was almost black.

Main reasoning/argumentation

The Administrative Tribunal considered that if the applicant was able to rely on a seniority of service of about twenty years in the service of POST, on favourable evaluations of his work, as well as on the absence of a disciplinary history, these elements were not sufficient to lessen the significant gravity of the facts of which he was accused, consisting of extremely denigrating and openly racist remarks, in view of the religious convictions of its victim, which were uttered with a certain frequency.

Is the case related to the application of the Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia, the Racial Equality Directive?

Key issues (concepts, interpretations) clarified by the case

In its reasoning, the Administrative Tribunal interprets the criteria for assessing the proportionality of the disciplinary sanction, notably the seriousness of the misconduct, the nature and rank of the duties of the accused, his priors and his general attitude.

Results (sanctions, outcome) and key consequences or implications of the case

The Administrative Tribunal rejected the appeal, therefore confirming the legality of the disciplinary sanction of revocation applied by the Director-General of POST Luxembourg to the worker.

Key quotation in original language and its unofficial translation into English with reference details

"Même si le demandeur a pu se prévaloir d’une ancienneté de service d’une vingtaine d’années (…), d’évaluations favorables de son travail, ainsi que de l’absence d’antécédents disciplinaires, ces éléments ne sont pas de nature à amoindrir la gravité conséquente des faits lui reprochés, se matérialisant par des propos extrêmement dénigrants et ouvertement racistes, proférés à une fréquence certaine, (….) l’utilisation d’images en fond d’écran, (…) montrant un porc égorgé baignant dans son sang, au vu des convictions religieuses de sa victime (…)" "Even if the applicant was able to claim a seniority of service of about twenty years (...), favorable evaluations of his work, as well as [an] absence of disciplinary history, these elements do not lessen the significant gravity of the facts of which he is accused, materializing in extremely denigrating and openly racist remarks, uttered with a certain frequency, (.... ) the use of images in the background of the screen, (...) showing a slaughtered pig bathed in its blood, in view of the religious convictions of its victim (...)"

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