On 30 April, the Court of Appeal of Northern Ireland held that religious education curriculum does not violate the right to education found in Article 2 of Protocol 1 (A2P1) to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The first respondent, a child attending primary school in Belfast, participated in non-denominational Christian religious education through her school. Her parents (second and third respondent), who are not religious, were upset when they witnessed the respondent saying a prayer that she learned at school before eating and that she began asking questions about “God and religion”. The respondent’s parents voiced their concerns to her school and asked what the school was doing to ensure that the religious education was balanced. The school let them know that the religious education was “bible-based” and was compliant with the law surrounding religious education in Northern Ireland.
The respondents then sought judicial review challenging the Education and Libraries (NI) Order 1986, the Education (NI) Order 2006, and the Education (Core Syllabus for Religious Education) Order (NI) 2007. These pieces of legislation provide for Mandatory religious education and collective worship. The parents alleged that this violated their Article 9 ECHR right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion and A2P1 which requires that public education “respect the right of parents to ensure such education… is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.” The High Court of Northern Ireland found in favor of the respondents, ruling that the religious education was not being conducted in "an objective, critical and pluralist manner” as is required by the European Court of Human Rights' (ECtHR) “objectivity test” as set out in the 2008 case Folgerø v Norway. The Department of Education appealed the case.
On appeal, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal reversed the High Court’s Ruling. The court stated that States have a “wide margin of appreciation” when it comes to educational policies/curriculum surrounding “issues of social policy”. The court looked at the case of Kjeldsen, Busk Madsen & Pedersen v Denmark, which stated that when it comes to the interpretation of A2P1 “The State is forbidden to pursue an aim of indoctrination that might be considered as not respecting parents’ religious and philosophical convictions. That is the limit that must not be exceeded.” The Court also considered the High Court’s finding that the States’s “must accord equal respect to different religious convictions and to non-religious beliefs” and found it to be incorrect as indoctrination was the limit. The Court did consider whether the religious teachings were conveyed in “an objective, critical and pluralist manner” and decided that it was not but ruled that this was not a violation of A2P1 because of the Education (NI) Order 2006, which allows for parents to excuse their child from any religious curriculum for any reason and that the second and third respondents had not exercised this right. The court also stated that this ability is what prevents A2P1 from being discriminatory.
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