Human Rights and Religious Litigation—Faith in the Law?

Abstract

This is the era of human rights and religious litigation. Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented rise in the number of cases where the principles of non-discrimination and equality have been pitted against the right to freedom of religion or belief. This article seeks to examine this development with regard to an issue that is particularly synonymous with controversy-legal conflicts between conservative religious believers and people from LGBTIQ+ communities. The article's primary focus is on the adverse consequences of excessive litigation in this field. In order to tackle the problem of conservative faith/ LGBTIQ+ disputes it is suggested that a more holistic approach is needed, based on the principles of compromise, dignity and empathy. The proposed mechanism by which such an approach might be effected is that of 'meaningful engagement', a dispute resolution strategy that has been recognised by the South African Constitutional Court. 8. Robin Bradley Kar, 'Transformational Marriage: How to end the Culture Wars over Same-Sex marriage' in Robin Fretwell Wilson (ed) The Contested Place of Religion in Family Life (Cambridge University Press 2018) 12, forthcoming <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3049650> 5 The increasing regulation of religion by the state-a wide-ranging process that has been associated with the creation of new laws, unprecedented discussion of 'religious rights', and a significant increase in religious litigation-has been referred to by scholars as the 'juridification of religion'. 9 Most notably Russell Sandberg, building on the work of Blicher and Molander, 10 has suggested that the 'juridification of religion' has three dimensions. The first relates to 'legal explosion', which is the way that the 'law comes to regulate an increasing number of different activities'. 11 The crucial legal changes that have acted as catalysts to this 'legal explosion' have been the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) which incorporates the main articles of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, 12 and the Equality Act 2010 (EA) which draws together and strengthens strands of pre-existing non-discrimination legislation. 13 The HRA and the EA each protect both freedom of religion/belief and the principles of LGBTIQ+ rights/equality. Prior to these developments the positive legal protections available to both religion/belief and (especially) to LGBTIQ+ rights and equality were either significantly weaker or effectively non-existent.

Introduction: Religious freedom: between governance and social perception Introduction: Liberté religieuse : entre gouvernance et perception sociale

“…Within the sociology of law, the discussions around the legal definition of religion in its relation to religious freedom (Jamal, 2015;Sandberg, 2014) move scholars to consider what kind of religion may or may not be protected through law (Sullivan, 2005) and how to establish specific socio-legal criteria to produce a more integrative approach to the legal protection of religious freedom (Peroni, 2014). Moreover, the sociology of religious freedom contributed to understanding normative dynamics between positive law and social norms, explaining how the institutional process of the juridification of religion (Cumper and Lewis, 2019) is interlinked with the social norm-making of individuals and groups (Breskaya et al, 2018). Meanwhile, political science highlighted the tensions between the constitutional promises of religious freedoms and practices of state regulation (Grim and Finke, 2011).…”

“…En sociologie du droit, les discussions autour de la définition juridique à donner à la religion, dans sa relation avec la liberté religieuse (Jamal, 2015 ;Sandberg, 2014), ont conduit les chercheurs à examiner quel type de religion pourrait ou non bénéficier d'une protection légale (Sullivan, 2005), ainsi qu'à déterminer les critères socio-légaux spécifiques qui rendent la protection de la liberté religieuse plus intégrative (Peroni, 2014). De plus, la sociologie de la liberté religieuse a contribué à éclairer les dynamiques normatives qui ont lieu entre le droit positif et les normes sociales, mettant dès lors en évidence les processus institutionnels de judiciarisation de la religion (Cumper et Lewis, 2019) en lien avec la production des normes sociales par les individus et les groupes sociaux (Breskaya, Giordan et Richardson, 2018). Parallèlement, la science politique a mis en évidence les tensions entre les promesses constitutionnelles de libertés religieuses et les pratiques de régulation de l'État (Grim et Finke, 2011).…”