Post‐Secularism and the European Court of Human Rights: Or How God Never Really Went Away
Ahdar, Rex
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Cite this item:
The Modern Law Review, Vol. 75, Issue 6, pp. 1064-1098, 2012.
Permanent link to OUR Archive version:
http://hdl.handle.net/10523/8624
Abstract:
This article analyses the critical yet elusive notions of state neutrality, secularism and religious coercion under the European Convention in light of the European Court of Human Rights recent decision in Lautsi v Italy. We contend that the real concern in the Italian crucifix case was not the infringement of the school pupils’ religious freedom nor the proselytising or coercive effect of the ‘passive’ religious symbols. Rather, opponents of the longstanding symbols were animated by desire for strict religious equality, a notion that is, correctly in our view, not guaranteed under the Convention. Lautsi has significantly cleared the conceptual undergrowth surrounding state neutrality and the varieties of secularism, reined in the elastic notion of religious coercion and eschewed attempts to squeeze the constitutional diversity of European religion‐state frameworks into a strict American‐style separationist mould. The Convention jurisprudence on freedom of religion has finally come of age.
Date:
2012
Publisher:
Wiley & Sons
Pages:
1064-1098
Keywords:
secularism; religious neutrality; religious coercion; religious symbols; margin of appreciation
Research Type:
Journal Article
Languages:
English
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