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Lachiri v Belgium and Bans on Wearing Islamic Dress in the Courtroom: An Emerging Trend

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2019

Kaushik Paul
Kaushik Paul*
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

In recent years, the wearing of Islamic dress in public spaces and elsewhere has generated widespread controversy all over Europe. The wearing of the hijab and other Islamic veils has been the subject of adjudication before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on many occasions. The most recent case before the ECtHR as to the prohibition on wearing the hijab is Lachiri v Belgium. In this case, the ECtHR held that a prohibition on wearing the hijab in the courtroom constitutes an infringement of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which guarantees the right to freedom of religion or belief. From the perspective of religious freedom, the ruling of the Strasbourg Court in Lachiri is very significant for many reasons. The purpose of this comment is critically to analyse the ECtHR's decision in Lachiri from the standpoint of religious liberty.

Keywords

Islamic dressArticle 9 ECHRreligious freedom
Type
Comment
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 48 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2019 

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References

1 See, for example, Dahlab v Switzerland App no 42393/98 (ECtHR, 15 February 2001); Leyla Sahin v Turkey App no 44774/98 (ECtHR, 10 November 2005); Kose and 93 Others v Turkey App no 26625/02 (ECtHR, 24 January 2006); Kurtulmas v Turkey App no 65500/01 (ECtHR, 24 January 2006); El Morsli v France App no 1558506 (ECtHR, 4 March 2008); SAS v France App no 43835/11 (ECtHR, 1 July 2014); Ebrahimian v France App no 64846/11 (ECtHR, 26 November 2015); Barik Edidi v Spain App no 21780/13 (ECtHR, 26 April 2016); Belcacemi and Oussar v Belgium App no 37798/13 (ECtHR, 11 July 2017).

2 Lachiri v Belgium App no 3413/09 (ECtHR, 18 September 2018) (hereafter ‘Lachiri’). This judgment is in French only. However, regarding the judgment of this case, the Strasbourg Court has published a press release, available at <https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press#>, accessed 25 September 2018.

3 Lachiri, para 31.

4 Ibid, para 32.

5 Ibid, paras 34–35.

6 Ibid, para 38.

7 Ibid, paras 44, 46.

8 Ibid, para 46.

9 Hamidovic v Bosnia and Herzegovina App no 57792/15 (ECtHR, 5 December 2017).

10 Ibid, Concurring Opinion of Judge De Gaetano, para 2.

11 Ahmed, F, ‘The autonomy rational for religious freedom’, (2017) 80:2 Modern Law Review 238–263 at 239CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966, Art 18.

13 For a general discussion on this, see Evans, C, Freedom of Religion under the European Convention on Human Rights (Oxford, 2003), pp 29–32Google Scholar.

14 Lachiri, para 44.

15 Ibid. See also, the ECtHR's press release on this case (n 2 above).

16 See Ebrahimian v France App no 64846/11 (ECtHR, 26 November 2015), paras 63–64.

17 S Berry, ‘Eroding religious freedom step by step: France and the Baby Loup case’, EJIL: Talk, 1 July 2014, available at <https://www.ejiltalk.org/eroding-religious-freedom-step-by-step-france-and-the-baby-loup-case/>, accessed 29 September 2018.

18 See n 1 above for details of these cases.

19 Dogru v France App no 27058/05 (ECtHR, 4 December 2008).

20 Fokas, E, ‘The European Court of Human Rights and minority religions: messages generated and messages received’ (2017) 45 Religion, State and Society 166–173 at 168CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Hamidovic v Bosnia and Herzegovina, App no 57792/15 (ECtHR, 5 December 2017).

22 Chassagnou and Others v France App nos 25088/94, 28331/95 and 28443/95 (ECtHR, 29 April 1999), para 112.