The contribution of the European Court of Human Rights to contemporary religious-related dilemmas
from LSE:
There have been an increasing number of applications before the European Court of Human Rights concerning religious diversity, indicating the growing importance of this topic in the European arena. Often criticised for being arbitrary and unpredictable, Roberta Medda-Windischer argues that the Courts approach to religion is pragmatic, but it must strengthen the role of the state as a promoter of tolerance.
The increased diversity of contemporary societies has multiplied the claims to accommodate diversity, in particular religious diversity, in different contexts of everyday life such as work places, schools, and public offices. Many of these issues and accommodation claims are brought up to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, in charge of supervising the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court has a rather broad jurisdiction covering not only all EU Member States –as the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice– but also non-EU countries such as Turkey, Russia and Switzerland.
One of the main rules developed by the Strasbourg Court when deciding over cases regarding the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, is that the right to manifest religion is not unconditional and this makes regulation and restrictions on this right possible. This is due to the fact that the Court interprets the right to freedom of religion as having two dimensions: internal and external. The internal freedom can only be unconditional because it concerns deep-seated ideas and convictions formed in an individual’s conscience which cannot, in themselves, disturb public order and consequently cannot be limited by state authorities. In contrast, external freedom, despite its considerable importance, can only be relative. This relativity is logical inasmuch as, because the freedom in question is the freedom to manifest one’s beliefs, public order or the rights of others, for instance, may be affected or even threatened. Consequently, although the freedom to hold beliefs and convictions can only be unconditional, the freedom to manifest them can be relative.
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