Section "Religious Intolerance and Discrimination"

January 13, 1999

UNITED KINGDOM

"Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to
such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic
society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public
order, health or morals, or for the protection of rights and freedoms of
others." ECHR Article 9.
 

HRWF (13.01.1999) - Can changes in the law change attitudes? Can winning
cases in the European Court of Human Rights win arguments? Will
implementing the new UK Human Rights Act establish religious freedom and
respect for the beliefs of minorities, including the 2,600 new religions?
Which is likelier to protect our freedom in Britain to believe and worship
as we choose: the unwritten British constitution with its 'tradition of
tolerance' built up over the centuries, or the European Convention on Human
Rights?
 

Fifty-five lawyers, academics, human rights activists, and representatives
of various religious traditions who attended a two-day seminar at Imperial
College, London, on January 6 and 7 to debate the probable impact of the
Human Rights Act on the religious freedom of the 750,000,000 people of the
EC's 14 member states, were cautiously optimistic. Some of the lawyers-and
Willy Fautré-took the pragmatic view, that only the admonitory effect of
losing landmark cases under Articles 8 and 9 of the Human Rights Act-like
Kokkinakis v. Greece (1993) and Hoffman v. Austria (1993)-would cause
member states to temper what Willy Fautré called "the hysterical anti-cult
atmosphere" emanating from France and other states that are adopting a
similar approach to minority religions.
 

Others, like Anthony Bradney, University of Leicester senior law lecturer,
held that "a new activist judiciary" with access to a different European
jurisprudence would ensure believers' being "nurtured by the state" and
"more fully valued as citizens", concluding that although in some areas
"the impact of the Act will  … be slight," overall, "it is going to have a
huge effect on the relationship between religion and the law." His
colleague, Peter Cumper, raised the possibility of judges ruling on issues
which were essentially matters of religious doctrine; but thought that, on
balance, erosion of religious freedom in a land where the Queen is both
Head of State and Head of the established church, would be countered by the
courts' "putting a British spin on the Human Rights Act."
 

Still others, including Roger Ballard of the University of Manchester's
Department of Religions, found the ECHR to be so "hedged around with
limitations in the area of practice that it is unlikely to offer any
significant advance". Norman Doe, senior lecturer and Director of the
Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff Law School,  reviewed the history of
litigation involving disaffected members of the Jewish, Islamic, Sikh,
Hindu and Anglican faiths.  He concluded that the new UK legislation was
unlikely to lead to wholesale reversal of the decision of ecclesiastical
courts in such areas as canon law, discipline of members, freedom of
information, and marriage.
 

Dr David Robertson, Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford, said that the
choice is between two different approaches: the "highly developed
jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court" with its wall between church and
State, and the jurisprudence of the ECHR which tends "towards privileging
the claims of religion against the claim of those who are  … hostile to
religion." The new Act "would seem to incline the UK courts towards the
European approach, but cultural factors and the natural tendency of the
UK's higher courts are likely to lean them towards the American approach."
 

This latter point was taken up enthusiastically by Philip Brumley, general
counsel to the  Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses: "A bedrock liberty
of Anglo-American common and constitutional law is that issues of religious
belief are an absolute freedom and that religious practices may be
circumscribed only by a compelling State interest. Even then, the State
must find the least restrictive means to achieve this interest…. the
Anglo-American tradition has been to allow the individual to determine
which belief he will profess, if any at all."
 

He contrasted this with the German Enquete Commission's collection of
evidence about religious minorities in secret, from interested parties, and
without rigorous examination of objective credentials or allowing for
cross-examination or refutation. The ensuing 1998 report suggested that
granting public corporation status to religious organisations "considered
in the light of the increasingly enigmatic market in religious and
ideological groups offering salvation, as well as others, could develop
into a type of government quality stamp, in which 'consumers' would have
special confidence."
 

Philip Brumley said that "right across Europe governments are informing
their populaces of which religions have so-called 'government consumer
protect seals of approval' and which religions are disfavoured. Events in
Europe clearly show that even fundamental religious freedoms that one would
have only recently considered to be beyond impeachment are now very
seriously hanging in the balance." He pointed to M. Alain Vivien, Chairman
of the French Interministerial Mission to Fight Against Cults, who had
railed against America's First Amendment precisely because it precludes
state evaluation of religious belief. His hope is that: "cooler minds will
prevail in the question of how society should view new religious movements
and those who belong to minority religions... Perhaps aided by Italy,
Denmark and Sweden, the United Kingdom will take the lead in protecting
religious liberties, and in dissipating religious prejudice wherever it is
found."
 

Several academic contributors saw the rising religious intolerance
engendered by professional 'anti-cultists' in Europe as a social rather
than a legal malaise. Professor Eileen Barker, from the London School of
Economics' Department of Sociology, outlined how anti-cultism (described by
Martyn Percy, a director of the Lincoln Institute for the Study of Religion
and Society as "today's anti-Semitism") operates. Its practitioners apply
the label 'cult' or 'sect' to minority religions, with the inference that
these are "nasty, satanic, unnatural, not normal". They compile emotive but
unscientific reports, mainly from ex-members' testimony, and put what they
stigmatise as 'dangerous cults' on 'hit lists'.  These may have no standing
in law, but have powerful persuasive effect.  This has led to citizens
being unable to rent property,  to punitive taxation of minority religious
bodies by the State,  to children being excluded from school,  or being
arbitrarily removed from parents in disputed custody cases,  and to the
police  turning a blind eye to violence and kidnapping.
 

"Laws and Conventions can certainly suggest, but they cannot dictate the
way we treat 'the other'. The same can be said of the media, the
educational system, the workplace and the family," Professor Barker said.
She gave an example of discrediting by use of selective terminology:
"Compare these two statements; the children were brought up as Catholics,
and the children were indoctrinated by their Witness parents."
 

Some comments from the delegates :

...Vedhyas Adbutha, a monk in the Mandorom monastery in the south of France,
said his hope for the ECHR was "for us to be respected, and to get our
rights in France. Since 1988 we have been asking to be recognised as a
congregation, but officials treat us with contempt. They use planning and
tax laws to make us look like criminals, but we have never been convicted
of any offence."

---

© Cité Sainte de Mandarom® Shambhasalem® - 1999
La Baume 04120 Castellane France
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 83 63 83 - Fax: +33 (0)4 92 83 66 07
mandarom@aumisme.org