Overview
- The federal cabinet on Wednesday approved a narrow update to the Equal Treatment Act, extending claim deadlines to four months, widening sexual harassment protection beyond the workplace, enabling the federal anti-bias office to offer voluntary mediation, and narrowing church hiring exemptions.
- Germany’s anti-discrimination commissioner Ferda Ataman called the plan a missed chance, saying it still excludes dealings with public authorities and followed only a four-day consultation window for states and groups.
- In North Rhine-Westphalia, police unions, teachers’ groups and legal scholars attacked the state’s draft anti-bias law, warning that a planned shift in the burden of proof would put staff under general suspicion and spur misuse, as a police union petition topped 27,000 signatures.
- Law professors Gregor Thüsing and Martin Diller told a Landtag hearing the NRW draft contains formal legal flaws and would force heavy documentation where officials use discretion, such as in schools and policing.
- The NRW proposal would not apply to cities or local agencies, a carve-out critics say leaves many real-world cases unprotected, even as Berlin’s 2020 law serves as the lone state-level model and other states debate their own versions.