Should women be allowed to wear the veil in court?

Baroness Hale, deputy president of the UK Supreme Court, has recently highlighted the importance of seeing faces in court, when women are testifying or in case the issue of identity or recognition is at risk.

The urgency to be firm in such regard follows a recent family law case, where Lady Hale had to deal with a woman who was found to be misleading the court when she was asked to remove her niqab.

Britain’s most senior female judge believes it would not have been so obvious the woman was lying, if she had only been able to see her eyes, rather than her facial expressions.

This firm approach is not meant to stop people behaving according to their sincerely held religious reasons, as long as they do not do any harm.

However, as soon as a veil perverts the course of justice while giving evidence in court, tougher measures must be put into place.

In 2013 Prime Minister David Cameron had a say on such a contentious subject, declaring he would have considered introducing specific guidelines to judges on when they could ask people to remove their veil in court. 

No actual policy has followed so far, though.