Human rights and discrimination law are often criticised in the press. Sometimes the criticisms are justified, but the level of anger which a system of universal rights can generate is sometimes surprising. Unfortunately, some of that anger is caused by inaccurate reporting of judgments. In yesterday’s Telegraph online, Cristina Odone blogged on a recent “scandal” [...]
Archive for the ‘Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion’ Category
Ban on religious couple adopting?.. On the naughty step
Posted in Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Defamation / Libel, Family, In the news, Poor reporting on April 26, 2011 | 6 Comments »
Analysis: the place of religion in foster care decisions
Posted in Art. 14 | Anti-Discrimination, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case comments, Case summaries, Children, Religion on March 2, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Johns v Derby City Council and Equality and Human Rights Commission (intervening) [2011] EWHC 375 (Admin)- Read judgment Religious views opposing homosexuality are a legitimate fostering concern and the local authority’s approach to this question did not constitute religious discrimination. The claimant husband and wife applied to the defendant local authority to be approved as [...]
Will churches really be sued for not allowing civil partnerships?
Posted in Art. 12 | Right to Marry / Found Family, Art. 14 | Anti-Discrimination, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Family, In the news, Religion, tagged civil partnerships, Gay marriage on February 24, 2011 | 7 Comments »
On 17 February the Home Secretary announced that the government was moving ahead with changes to the Civil Partnership Act 2004 which would allow the registration of civil partnerships to take place in religious premises. While welcomed by many, some have voiced concerns that permission will inevitably become coercion. They fear that religious organisations may face [...]
No religion in court please
Posted in Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case comments, Religion, tagged Dajid Singh Shergill, feature, Hardeep Singh, Jeet Singh on January 31, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Shergill v Purewal & Anor [2010] EWHC 3610 (QB) (15 December 2010) - Read judgment In the commotion surrounding the Christian hotel gay discrimination case, it is easy to forget that there is a long-standing principle that English courts will not decide matters of religious doctrine. This principle has been in play in a run of recent [...]
A Cornish hotel and the conflict between discrimination law and religious freedom
Posted in Art. 14 | Anti-Discrimination, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case summaries, Religion on January 24, 2011 | 7 Comments »
Hall & Anor v Bull & Anor [2011] EW Misc 2 (CC) (04 January 2011) – Read judgment Judge Andrew Rutherford in the Bristol County Court has held that the devout Christian couple who ran their Cornish hotel according to their Christian principles directly discriminate against a homosexual couple in a civil partnership, when they [...]
UK scheme to police sham marriages slammed by Human Rights court
Posted in Art. 12 | Right to Marry / Found Family, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case comments, Case summaries, European, Family, Immigration/Extradition, In the news on December 16, 2010 |
O’Donoghue and Others v. the United Kingdom(application no. 34848/07): The government’s system for preventing sham marriages as an entry ploy for immigrants breached the right to marry and was discriminatory – read judgment. By the time this case was lodged the Certificate of Approval Scheme had been much diluted by a series of amendments, but [...]
Faith courts would do more harm than good
Posted in Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, In the news, Judges and Juries, Religion, tagged faith courts on November 5, 2010 |
In a new article, Afua Hirsch discusses the difficult question of the place of religion in our courts, in light of comments made by a judge sentencing Roshonara Choudhry, a radicalised Muslim woman, for the murder of a Christian man. The writer compares this case to Lord Carey’s recent appeal in a same-sex counselling case [...]
The Pope’s visit and human rights
Posted in Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Children, In the news, Religion, tagged Pope, Pope Benedict, Pope's visit on September 16, 2010 |
The Pope begins a four-day visit to the UK today, the first official trip by a serving Pope for 28 years. The visit has already been controversial, and it raises some interesting questions from a human rights angle. The leader of the Catholic church has spoken out recently on UK equality laws, complaining that they [...]
Catholic Care gay adoption rejection boosts equality protection
Posted in Art. 14 | Anti-Discrimination, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case comments, Children, Religion, tagged Catholic Care, human rights on August 19, 2010 |
The Charity Commission has rejected a bid by a Catholic organisation to amend its charitable objects in order to restrict its adoption services to heterosexuals. The case highlights the significant protections which have been put in place by recent equality law, and the policing role which the Charity Commission is required to play from a [...]
Sexual orientation, religion and the courts’ increasingly difficult role
Posted in Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case summaries, In the news, Religion, tagged HJ Iran, human rights, Religion on July 14, 2010 |
The courts’ relationship with religious principles is rarely out of the spotlight, and recent decisions have provided more fuel for this debate. Aidan O’Neill QC, writing on the UK Supreme Court Blog, provides an interesting discussion of last week’s Supreme Court decision in HJ (Iran) in the context of a series of controversial United States [...]
Polish religious education breached freedom of conscience rights of pupil
Posted in Art. 14 | Anti-Discrimination, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case comments, Children, Education, Margin of Appreciation, Protocol 2 Art. 1 | Right to education, Religion, tagged human rights, Poland, religious freedom on June 24, 2010 |
Grzelak v. Poland (no. 7710/02) – read judgment The European Court of Human Rights has found that A Polish boy who refused to attend religious instruction classes for reasons of personal conviction had been discriminated against human rights because of a policy of reflecting that non-attendance in school reports. The applicant Mateus Grzelak had been [...]
Are the courts doing enough to protect religious freedom? [updated]
Posted in Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, In the news, Religion, tagged Gary McFarlane, Hardeep Singh, human rights, Religion on June 14, 2010 |
A number of recent cases have ignited an interesting debate on the place of religion in the UK court system, and whether the courts are doing enough to ensure religious freedom as they are obligated to do under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The most notorious example has been McFarlane v Relate [...]
Religious versus other freedoms: the future of Article 9?
Posted in Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case comments, Employment, Features, Religion, tagged human rights, Lord Carey, Mcfarlane, relgious freedom, Religion on May 10, 2010 |
McFarlane v Relate Avon Ltd [2010] EWCA Civ B1 (29 April 2010) – Read judgment or our previous post Case comment Lord Carey of Clifton, responding to Lord Justice Laws’ observations in MacFarlane, has called this latest dust-up about religion in the courts a “deeply unedifying clash of rights“. It is indeed a clash of [...]
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Recommended- Assange v The Swedish Prosecution Authority [2012] UKSC 22 (30 May 2012) May 30, 2012Supreme Court rules by 5-2 majority that Julian Assange must be extradited to Sweden. Definition of "judicial authority" is a wide one.
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- Case law
- Assange v The Swedish Prosecution Authority [2012] UKSC 22 (30 May 2012) May 30, 2012Supreme Court rules by 5-2 majority that Julian Assange must be extradited to Sweden. Definition of "judicial authority" is a wide one.
- SCOPPOLA v. ITALY (No. 3) - 126/05 [2012] ECHR 868 (22 May 2012) May 23, 2012ECtHR Grand Chamber: automatic and indiscriminate disenfranchisement of prisoners unlawful but up to individual states how to implement changes were such a ban exist
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- MM and AO (A Child), R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 668 (18 May 2012) May 18, 2012Secretary of State acted lawfully in not ordering independent inquiry into 2009 protest at Immigration Detention Centre. Challenge by children separated from parents during protest and claiming pschiatric damage as result.
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- Assange v The Swedish Prosecution Authority [2012] UKSC 22 (30 May 2012) May 30, 2012
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UKHRB on Twitter
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- The case for letting prisoners vote – Reuven Ziegler May 24, 2012 1 Crown Office Row
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Adoption, same-sex couples and religion – again
Posted in Art. 14 | Anti-Discrimination, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case comments, Case summaries, Children, Religion, Social Care on May 3, 2011 | 3 Comments »
In a modern liberal democracy we take for granted the fact that laws apply to all individuals and are enforced by the courts without special consideration of religious beliefs they may happen to have. But for a while at least there was a very real danger of the dissolution of the divide between private orthodoxy [...]
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