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Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019) and AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021).

Friday, June 11, 2010

Church-state relations in European human rights law

Anyone want to broach this long article and tell me what it says? I'll await your reports in the morning.

5 comments:

DM said...

but at least FREE AIR CONDITIONING is included!


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Brian said...

That's too bloody long to read on a Saturday morning, especially when the baby has us trained to get no more than 2 consecutive hours sleep. Surely DM can give us a precis?

Free airconditioning sounds alright. Pity my new house didn't come with it.

Russell Blackford said...

Yes, the free airconditioning is something to look forward to.

Christian Munthe said...

Some points made (in so many words :-P) is that the ECHR...

1. provides religious expression with an extra layer of protection, e.g., in cases of hate speech,

2. can be used for assessing for discrimination not only laws, verdicts and action literally about religious acts or institutions, but also such that are formally non-discriminatory but, given a context, commonly applied to a discriminatory effect.

Kirth Gersen said...

The first half to two-thirds, if I read it correctly, basically says the following: (1) Establishment in general, and state religion in particular (or churches and other religious institutions being funded by a member nation) are not necessarily of any concern; (2) violations occur only in cases in which state-mandated religious procedures actually directly interfere with the democratic process; and (3) ECHR will look for violations of other specific guidelines before considering any violations that are potentially religious in nature.

Some specific examples are given, but that's the gist of it. I'll summarize the latter parts in a short while, given the opportunity.