Faith, Freedom, and Fairness: Supreme Court Rules Christian-Only Religious Education in Northern Ireland Schools Unlawful
21 November 2025
The Department of Education for Northern Ireland (in the matter of an application by JR87 and another for judicial review (Appellant) [2025] UKSC 40
This interesting decision shows the intersection between the right to education and the right to freedom of religion under the ECHR. These are fast evolving rights, particularly Article 9, whose “freedom” stipulation is becoming more important than the “religion” right. Article 9 is more and more often taken to cover the right not to cleave to any religion at all.
In this case the arguments were focussed on the right to education under Article 2 Protocol 1 of the Convention, taken together with Article 9. The main issue before the Supreme Court can be briefly stated. Did religious education and collective worship provided in a school in Northern Ireland breach the rights of a child, and the child’s parents, under Article 2 of the First Protocol (“A2P1”) to the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) read with Article 9 ECHR?
What is particularly interesting and unusual about this judgment is that it emerges from Northern Ireland with its own history of sectarianism and religious division. The very basis from which the case sprang goes back well over a hundred years; since Partition, the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and the Methodist Church in Ireland are under the control of what is now the Education Authority, and that is where we start our story, details of which can be found in the Supreme Court’s press summary.
Before we get going on this story, let’s highlight this sharp obvservation about the NI education system in paragraph 88 :
there is no commitment in the core syllabus to objectivity or to the development of critical thought. To teach pupils to accept a set of beliefs without critical analysis amounts to evangelism, proselytising, and indoctrination.
According to Strasbourg Jurisprudence, the State is forbidden to pursue an aim of indoctrination that might be considered as not respecting parents’ religious and philosophical convictions. That is the limit that must not be exceeded [see Kjedsen v Denmark (A/23) (1979–80) 1 EHRR711 at [53]].
In this instance, the Supreme Court did not make a separate and distinct finding of indoctrination. It was unnecessary to do so because conveying information and knowledge in a manner which is not objective, critical, and pluralistic manner amounts to indoctrination.
The Convention provision Art2 P1 imposes a positive duty, under the major principle
at (i) above, on the competent authorities to inspect schools “to see to it” that indoctrination does not occur and the concomitant duty on the competent authority to take action if on inspection it is found that it is occurring.
The Court of Appeal had fallen into error by drawing a distinction between conveying knowledge in a manner which was not objective, critical, and pluralistic on the one hand and indoctrination on the other: [see paras 104-106].
Issues before the Court
• Does the teaching of religious education that is not “objective, critical, and pluralistic” constitute “indoctrination” as forbidden by A2P1 ECHR?
• Is the existence of a parental right to withdraw sufficient safeguard against breach of rights under A2P1 and Article 9?
• Are the procedural and practical burdens on parents and children (including possible stigma and lack of alternatives) relevant to the ECHR analysis?
It is noteworthy that at the outset of Lord Stephens’ leading judgment, he highlights what is in fact at stake here.
“One of the issues on this appeal is whether teaching of religious education, which is not undertaken in an objective, critical, and pluralistic manner, amounts to pursuit of the aim of “indoctrination.” It is important when addressing that issue to emphasise that Christians wish to encourage others to believe that “[t]here is but one living and true God” and to encourage others to practise the Christian faith as the only path to salvation: see the first Article of Religion in the Church of Ireland, see the first Article of the Church of Ireland 2009 Declaration on the 39 Articles of Religion, and see John 14:6, and Acts 4:12.
The word “indoctrination” ordinarily has negative connotations but in the context of the Christian faith it is a synonym for evangelism or proselytising.” [para 10, italics added]
The kind of religious teaching authorised by this system is not some kind of milquetoast course on comparative religion; it advises children that there is only one true God, and way, to salvation. The parents objected, in short, to their child being taught at the School to assume that Christianity is an absolute truth. [para 21]
By way of illustration, J87’s father stated that:
“his daughter now believes that God made the world, and she repeats and practices a prayer/grace that she was taught at school at snack-time. His concern is that his daughter is learning Christianity and not learning “about” Christianity in a school context that effectively assumes its absolute truth and which encourages her to do the same.” [para 32]
The parents considered that the risk of stigmatisation of their daughter would be the inevitable consequence of her (alone) being excluded from religious education and collective worship, but also in the particular context of Northern Ireland: their own objections in a small School community may not be welcomed and/or may be misunderstood as hostility.[para 42]
Finally, by way of factual background, it is worth noting that schools that are grant-aided under NI religious provisions are obliged to grant access for pupils to “ministers of religion and other suitable persons, including teachers of the school.”
There is no statutory definition of a Minister of religion or of “suitable persons”. [para 64] In other words, there is no requirement under the relevant law on the Department to inspect this element of religious teaching.
Legal background
On the question of the intersection of A2P1 and Article 9 ECHR the Court considered that states, when exercising functions relating to education and teaching, must respect parents’ philosophical and religious convictions. The Strasbourg jurisprudence requires religious instruction to be “objective, critical, and pluralistic”. The State is forbidden from aiming at “indoctrination”: (Folgerø v Norway; Lautsi v Italy)
However, national authorities retain a “wide margin of appreciation” in curriculum design, selection, and delivery, especially given variations in historical and cultural contexts.
Of course, the right of the parents to withdraw their children must be genuine, practical, and non-stigmatising; it cannot be a theoretical option that imposes consequential burdens or amounts to indirect coercion.
The Court’s reasoning and conclusion
Lord Stephens, for the Court, accepted that both the content and delivery of the core syllabus in the relevant school lacked pluralism, being exclusively Christian in the foundational years, with non-Christian faiths not covered until much later. This was true both in the classroom and in collective worship, including through the involvement of external Christian ministers and representatives.
He reviewed the practical obstacles confronting parents wishing to invoke the right of withdrawal, particularly in a context where only one child (here, JR87) would have been withdrawn, exacerbating risks of social stigma, possible bullying, and the feeling of exclusion. The lack of alternative educational provision and the burden of having to devise arrangements with the school were found to impose additional procedural and substantive barriers.
The right of withdrawal, in practice, was neither a sufficient nor a proper safeguard against indoctrinatory or non-pluralistic religious education. Where the withdrawal right is not straightforward, is likely to stigmatise or deter, or puts undue burdens on parents, this does not remedy the underlying incompatibility with the ECHR.
The State has a proactive duty under A2P1 to ensure that educational provision respects parents’ convictions and does not require parents to take exceptional or burdensome action to remedy non-compliant provision.
In terms of appropriate relief for the parents in this instance, the Court did not go as far as quashing the statutory regime. It focussed instead on the need for legislative and administrative adaptation to ensure that the curriculum and collective worship can be delivered in a way that is ECHR-compliant—i.e., objective, critical, and pluralistic—including practical measures to ensure that withdrawal is a real, non-stigmatising option, but also, crucially, that the default curriculum itself is brought into alignment with human rights standards.
Comment
It is significant that the mere existence of an opt-out for parents does not suffice to justify a legally non-pluralistic curriculum or practice, if the process of withdrawal imposes substantial practical or psychological burdens. In its close focus on what actually goes on at schools supported by grant aid, the Supreme Court has placed statutory and public authorities on notice that the delivery of religious education and collective worship must provide sufficient alternatives to the so-called “truth” of a single faith. Otherwise this risks incompatibility with the ECHR.
What does this mean in practice?
• The Department of Education in Northern Ireland will be required to review the implementation of religious education and collective worship in all grant-aided schools for ECHR compliance.
• Schools must ensure that, where parental withdrawal is exercised, it can be done without burden or stigma, and arrangements for alternative education are available.
• The statutory framework and its operation—in particular, any individual faith-exclusive focus of both the “core syllabus” and school worship up to Key Stage 3—will require reform if it is to continue without further judicial or Strasbourg challenge.
Practical Implications
In all of this, we have to ask, as parents, to what extent should you be expected to toe the line if you’re taking advantage of church schools. Can you then put your foot down about your child being religiously indoctrinated? The NI churches all got together to make this policy forgetting there were secularists, humanists, atheists etc around!
This decision reaffirms the essential requirement that state provision of religious education and worship must tread a careful line between accommodating tradition and adhering to the demands of pluralism and respect for the convictions of all parents, especially those whose beliefs differ from the majority. The efficacy and accessibility of the right to withdraw from the school, as well as the content and ethos of teaching and worship, are now subject to elevated scrutiny—not only in Northern Ireland, but implicitly across all UK jurisdictions governed by the Human Rights Act 1998 and the ECHR. Ultimately, the judgment signals that policy convenience and majority tradition cannot override substantive Convention rights to religious freedom and parental respect in education.
