The Commission for Complaints of the Belgian National Employment Office today restored the right to jobless benefits of an Orthodox Jew who refused to register on Saturdays.
Regulations require registration on each working day that a worker is jobless. When the Orthodox Jew refused to register on Saturdays, his jobless benefits were withheld and he filed a complaint.
His complaint was sustained by the Commission on reference to the Belgian constitution and to the Convention on Human Rights. The Commission agreed that the documents confirmed the rights of religious Jews to exercise their religion without any direct or indirect compulsion and that this covered the complainant’s case.
The Commission noted that it was only as a consequence of Belgium’s Catholic tradition that Sunday was considered a holiday and that it was permissible for Orthodox Jews to replace Saturday for Sunday as such a non-working day.
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