A YOUNG Muslim girl yesterday failed in her two-year legal battle to force every school in Britain to allow pupils to decide their own dress code according to their religious belief.

Britain’s highest court ruled to uphold the right of all schools to set uniform rules provided that they consult their local community.

The Law Lords ruled that the human rights of Shabina Begum had not been breached when her school refused to allow her to wear a full-length Islamic dress to class and that Denbigh High School had not acted unlawfully.

The ruling, which overturned a previous Court of Appeal decision, was welcomed by head teachers.

Dressed in a violet floor-length jilbab and matching coat, Ms Begum remained defiant and said that she would consider appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.

She said that she was pleased to have opened a debate, which she hoped would increase pressure on schools to pay regard to pupils’ religious beliefs. “Obviously I am saddened and disappointed about this, but I am quite glad it is all over and I can move on now,” she said.

Asked why she had chosen to miss out on two years’ schooling instead of moving to one of three local schools where the jilbab was allowed, she said that they were all full. Ms Begum, who is studying for her A levels at Luton Sixth Form College, said that many Muslim women wear the shalwar kameez prescribed by the school, but that she believed it was a sin to show more than her hands and feet as a mature Islamic women.

“Muslim women do wear the shalwar kameez,” she said. “But it’s not really Islamic clothing, which is a one-piece garment which covers you from head to toe.” She added: “I don’t see why I had to move out of that school and from my friends just because I wanted to adhere to my religion.”

However the panel of five judges found that Denbigh High School was fully justified in the action it had taken, after being told that the school had consulted widely among local imams and the Muslim community about its uniform policy.

With a Bengali-born, Muslim head teacher, and four-fifths of the pupils Muslim, Governors had approved a flexible uniform allowing pupils to wear skirts, trousers or the shalwar kameez, which consists of a loose tunic and trousers, as well as a headscarf.

The head teacher said that a school uniform was essential for promoting inclusion. The school had also been told that some girls expressed fears that they might be forced into wearing the jilbab.

Lord Bingham said that any sincere religious belief should be respected but the case centred on whether Ms Begum’s freedom to express her beliefs were limited by the school and whether it was justified in doing so.

He said he considered that Denbigh High School had taken “immense pains to devise a uniform policy which respected Muslim beliefs but did so in an inclusive, unthreatening and uncompetitive way. The rules laid down are as far from being mindless as uniform rules could ever be”.

The judges were also told that Ms Begum’s older sister had worn the shalwar kameez while attending the school and that for two years Ms Begum had appeared happy to comply with the uniform code. In September 2002, however, she chose to challenge the code when she arrived in the jilbab and was sent home to change.

Luton Borough Council and the school welcomed the Law Lord’s ruling.

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