Suchergebnisse

The first account of the relationship between religion and the constitutional order of the EU, dealing with the key questions of religious freedom and the institutional role of religion and addressing the issues that are at the centre of public debate in Europe, such as the compatibility of Islam with European models of liberal democracy

This paper compares the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the US Supreme Court to show the weakness of rights-based justifications such as those suggested by Sager and Eisgruber, Dworkin and Nussabaum, for the strict religious neutrality of the state. Justifying secularism in rights terms is likely to lead to minimialist forms of secularism and risks drawing courts into problematic assessments of the compatibility of the beliefs of particular faiths with liberal democracy. The paper closes by suggesting that rights-based litigation is a problematic vehicle through which to regulate the relationship between religion, the law and the state as fundamental rights cannot do justice either to the reasons in favour of strict separation of religion and state or to the richness of religious experience.