from Evangelical Focus
The case of a father who was barred by the Spanish courts from taking his young son to church or teaching him about the faith, due to the mother’s opposition, has been referred to the European Court of Human Rights.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is examining a case which, if admitted for consideration, could lead to a review of a legal principle that the court itself established just three years ago. This concerns the case of a father of evangelical faith whom the courts in Spain have prohibited from teaching his son any religious content or taking him to church, following opposition from the child’s mother.
The dispute has reached Strasbourg after all legal avenues in Spain have been exhausted, including the Constitutional Court (TC), which unanimously rejected the claimant’s appeal, relying on a previous precedent set by the ECHR itself.
Religious freedom in conflict
The case originated in 2022, when the mother of a child born in 2016 applied to the Alcobendas Court of First Instance to be granted sole authority to decide on her son’s religious upbringing until he reached the age of twelve. She alleged that the father, following the separation, had begun taking the child to an evangelical church, reading him passages from the Bible and showing him faith-related content on a tablet, without her consent.
As argued during the case, before their separation, both parents had agreed not to provide the child with any religious upbringing. The court considered that this prior agreement – rather than a negative view of the Evangelical faith itself – was the criterion that should prevail whilst the child was not sufficiently mature to decide for himself.
Consequently, it granted the mother sole parental authority in this matter and expressly prohibited the father from taking the child to church, showing him Bible passages or “indoctrinating him in the Evangelical faith”. The Madrid Provincial Court of Appeal upheld the decision in 2023.
The father lodged an appeal for constitutional protection before the Constitutional Court, arguing that the ruling infringed his freedom of religion (Article 16 of the Constitution) and his right to ensure his son received a religious upbringing in accordance with his own convictions (Article 27.3). He maintained that the right to pass on one’s faith to one’s children forms part of the essential content of freedom of religion, even in the event of disagreement between the parents.