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The Need for a Principled Approach to Religious Freedoms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2010

James Dingemans QC
Affiliation:
Barrister

Extract

The European Court of Human Rights has adopted a narrow and restrictive approach to the protection of religious freedoms which is inconsistent with some of its own judgments about the importance of religious freedoms. This narrow and restrictive approach has necessarily influenced the approach of the Courts in England and Wales, and the approach is not supportable on any principled grounds. This article examines what has gone wrong, and makes some suggestions for the future.

Type
Comment
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2010

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References

1 Kokkinakis v Greece (1993) 17 EHRR 397, ECtHR.

2 Otto-Preminger v Austria (1995) 19 EHRR 34, ECtHR.

3 X v Denmark (1976) 5 DR 157.

4 [2002] EHRR 1339.

5 R (Williamson) v Secretary of State for Education [2003] QB 1300.

6 See paragraph 262 of the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

7 Jewish Liturgical Association v France 9 BHRC 27.

8 Mohisin Khan v Royal Air Force Summary Appeal Court [2004] EWHC 2230.

9 [2005] 2 AC 246.

10 R (SB) v Governors of Denbigh High School [2007] 1 AC 100.

11 See Minister of Home Affairs v Fisher [1980] AC 319 at 328.

12 R (Spiropoulos) v Brighton and Hove City Council [2007] EWHC 342 (Admin).

13 R (Amicus) v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Christian Action Research Education and others intervening [2004] IRLR 430 at paras 36 and 37.

14 Para 22.

15 See R(Carson) v Secretary of State [2006] 1 AC 173 at paragraph 58, and Morrison v PSNI [2010] NIQB 51.