Legal Status of Religious Organizations: A Comparative Overview

Durham, W. Cole

doi:10.1080/15570274.2010.487986

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 2 publications

(1 reference statement)

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“…Many Member States have their own national systems for recognizing churches and religious groups, which grants them specific benefits upon successful registration. 48 Obviously, this support is limited to churches and religious groups that are part of the national system in the respective Member State. 49 As a consequence, the Court's analysis may result in a restriction on the freedom of movement concerning the entitlement to certain subsidies for churches from other Member States.…”

Section: Commentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Freikirche case: Is the Court of Justice reinforcing or eroding the European Wall of Separation?

Buchta¹

2023

Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law

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The purpose of this Case Note is to analyse the latest judgment of the Court of Justice related to Article 17(1) TFEU – the Freikirche case. After providing the key facts and the reasoning of the Court, the note outlines the common features and differences of the case with the previous case law related to this provision. The author claims that while the Court in the Freikirche case recognizes the protective effect of Article 17(1) TFEU, it implicitly creates potential to examine other national recognition systems of churches. In the author’s view, in cases of a more restrictive national systems than the Austrian one, this provision should be used as a part of the proportionality analysis to balance the restrictions against the potential impact on the status of churches under national law and their autonomy. In the author’s view, this would be the consequence of the protective effect of this provision, which may be perceived as the European Wall of Separation between the EU on one hand, and the status of churches under national law and the autonomy of churches on the other hand.

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Section: Commentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Freikirche case: Is the Court of Justice reinforcing or eroding the European Wall of Separation?

Buchta¹

2023

Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law

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“…The legal provisions on religious associations should have the function of identifying and improving the degree and extent of this participation. The content of these legal regulations can correspond to the three modern trends in determining the legal status of religious organizations as proposed by Durham (2010). They were, namely the maximization of social benefits generated by religion, the assistance (as distinguished from control) by the state to religious organizations, and the development of legal structures for increasingly pluralistic societies.…”

Section: Completing Legal Regulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Secular State: The Vietnamese Experience

Nguyen

2023

UUMJLS

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In state atheism, the issue of secularism is frequently deemed a matter not of “separating religion from the state”, but “separating religion from society” or “rejecting religion from society”. Case studies help in effectively evaluating the extent to which this philosophy can be realized. In this regard, the present article is about a case study on the construction of the secular state in contemporary socialist Vietnamese society. The article is mainly based on the provisions of Vietnam’s legal documents on belief and religion. Analyses of Vietnamese, Russian, and Western scholars on the atheistic state and the secular state have been duly conducted. In addition, the placement of state-religious relations within the cultural framework has created opportunities for studying, visualizing, and illustrating the secular state in its various aspects and in a detailed manner. The author has adopted socio-cultural approaches, which employs logical, historical and legal research methods to analyse, synthesize, compare and clarify the following three issues: (1) the formation and transformation of the secular state in Vietnam; (2) the relationship between the atheistic state and the secular state in Vietnam; and (3) solutions to the problems posed by state secularism in the country. The results indicate that from its establishment in 1945 to the present day, the socialist state in Vietnam has issued legal documents aimed at building a “cooperation” model of a secular state. The model faced certain challenges from 1960 to 1980 due to the influence of other socialist countries, but since the 1986 reform of Vietnam it has increasingly evolved characteristics of a “cooperation” model, which has contributed remarkably in resolving the issue of conflict between the atheist state and the secular state. The harmony between the two types of state, the secular and theatheistic in Vietnam is related to the traditional and cultural elements of Vietnamese society. The cooperation model of a secular state is regarded as the key to building state-religious relations in Vietnam, while a culture of tolerance is fundamental to its construction.

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“…This trend is reflected in the fact that the law has gradually identified the improvement of the level and the scope of participation in the social fields of religious organizations. It is also pointed out by William Cole in the trend of "maximizing the social benefits generated by religion" when discussing general trends of the law on the legal status of religious organizations [12].…”

Section: The Issues That Need To Be Paid Further Attention By the Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Trends in Law on Freedom of Belief and Religion in Vietnam

Nguyen¹

2019

Proceedings of the 5th Annual International Conference on Social Science and Contemporary Humanity Development (SSCHD 2019)

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The article aims to provide an overview of the trends that exist in the law on freedom of belief and religion in Vietnam. To achieve this goal, the author studied a system of legal provisions on freedom of belief and religion in each period of Vietnam's legislation since the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, pointing out the cross-cutting issues connecting these periods. The author uses methods such as analysis, synthesis, and comparison. Research results show that there are 4 common trends: Approximating to the provisions of international law; ensuring "equality" in enjoying the right to freedom of belief and religion; promoting religious activities that contribute to social development; and building a harmonious relationship between the state and religion. These trends both reflect the characteristics of Vietnamese legal culture and religious policy and clarify the duties of the law in the context of building and developing Vietnamese society. This article not only contributes to affirming the success of the law on freedom of belief and religion but opens the ways for the process of completing this legal content.

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Legal Status of Religious Organizations: A Comparative Overview

Cited by 10 publications

References 2 publications

The Freikirche case: Is the Court of Justice reinforcing or eroding the European Wall of Separation?

The Freikirche case: Is the Court of Justice reinforcing or eroding the European Wall of Separation?

The Secular State: The Vietnamese Experience

Trends in Law on Freedom of Belief and Religion in Vietnam

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