## Facts

- Bernhard Josef Schüth, a German national, was employed from 1983 as an organist and choirmaster by a Roman Catholic parish under a contract incorporating church employment rules and a contractual duty of loyalty.
- The contract and oath required him to respect Catholic moral teaching; serious breaches could justify summary termination.
- After separating from his wife in 1994, he began cohabiting with another woman; her pregnancy became known within the parish in 1997.
- The parish dismissed him for conduct described as “adultery and bigamy,” asserting that his relationship and child conflicted with Catholic teaching and that continued employment would harm the parish’s credibility.
- Domestic courts initially found the dismissal invalid, but after review and remittal the dismissal was ultimately upheld; the constitutional complaint was not admitted.
- Schüth later obtained part-time work as an organist in a Protestant church under limited conditions.
- He complained that the dismissal, as upheld by German courts, violated his right to respect for private and family life under Article 8 of the Convention.

## Issues

1. Whether the dismissal and the domestic judgments upholding it fell within the scope of Article 8 as an interference with private and family life.
2. Whether the State had a positive obligation under Article 8 to protect private life in an employment dispute involving a religious employer.
3. Whether domestic courts struck a fair balance between the employee’s Article 8 rights and the church’s autonomy interests protected under Articles 9 and 11.

## Decision

- The European Court of Human Rights held, by majority, that there was a violation of Article 8.
- The Court treated the case as involving competing Convention interests and reviewed whether national courts applied Convention-compatible balancing criteria.
- It found the domestic review insufficiently thorough and overly deferential to the church’s assessment of loyalty obligations and reputational harm.
- It reserved just satisfaction under Article 41 for a later stage.

## Legal Principles

- Article 8 may impose positive obligations on the State to secure respect for private life in relations between private parties; in both negative- and positive-obligation contexts, authorities must strike a fair balance, subject to a margin of appreciation.
- Religious community autonomy is protected under Article 9, interpreted in light of Article 11; however, autonomy is not absolute when it conflicts with employees’ Convention rights.
- In church-employment cases, proportionality review should address: (i) the nature of the post and the strength of any loyalty requirement, (ii) the nature and seriousness of the alleged breach, (iii) whether lesser measures could suffice, and (iv) the impact of dismissal on the employee’s professional and private life.
- Loyalty duties must be function-sensitive; heightened constraints on private life require justification tied to the employee’s concrete role, particularly where the role is not doctrinal or prominently representative.
- A dismissal that effectively compels an employee to abandon a new family relationship, without careful examination of alternatives and context, can disproportionately impair the essence of Article 8 protection.

## Conclusion

The Court concluded that Germany failed to meet its Article 8 positive obligations because domestic courts did not conduct a sufficiently rigorous proportionality analysis of the organist’s loyalty duty in light of his non-prominent functions, the severity of dismissal, the availability of less restrictive measures, and the substantial impact on his private and family life.


Schüth v. Germany, App. No. 1620/03 (Eur. Ct. H.R. 2010)