German Court Upholds Shopping-Hour Rules

BERLIN – Germany’s highest court on Wednesday upheld the government’s right to dictate store closing hours, ruling a federal law preventing retailers from opening on Sundays and holidays is constitutional.

One of the country’s major department stores had challenged the law, which dates back to 1956, as unfair and increasingly irrelevant.

The government, which last year extended Saturday shopping by four hours to match weekday closing times, has defended the restrictions as defending workers’ rights.

German shoppers have long been used to planning ahead to meet the law, which generally obliges stores to close by 8 p.m. and keeps them shut all day Sunday and holidays.

The eight-judge court was evenly split over whether the government should be allowed to set weekday closing hours, but since a majority decision was necessary for the practice to be declared unconstitutional, the law remains unchanged.

The Kaufhof department store chain argued the law restricts freedom of labor and offers an unfair advantage to shops at stations, airports and gas stations that enjoy exemptions.

It took its case to the Federal Constitutional Court after a Berlin court ordered that it not repeat the Saturday evening and Sunday opening of a store in the capital in 1999.

Kaufhof argued when the constitutional court heard the case last November that thousands of Germans already go Sunday shopping in neighboring countries.

“We want to give people in Germany the possibility to go shopping with the whole family on a Sunday, without stress,” chief executive Lovro Mandac said.

Germany’s labor unions, traditional allies of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats, are staunch defenders of the shopping hour restrictions.

Schroeder’s economics and labor minister drew strong union criticism when he argued in April that, with depressed consumer spending weighing heavily on Europe’s biggest economy, store owners should be given more flexibility.

Wolfgang Clement suggested lifting limits on weekday shopping hours and leaving local authorities to decide on Sunday opening.