So there was a deal after all. Meanwhile, in the world of law & religion…

Sex and relationships education

In R (Colchester) v Secretary of State for Education [2020] EWHC 3376 (Admin), a renewed application for permission to apply for judicial review after permission had been refused on the papers by Lane J, the claimants challenged various items in the Schedule to the Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019 made under s.34 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and certain paragraphs of the associated statutory Guidance. They also contended that the Secretary of State had failed to comply with his public sector equality duty under s.149 of the Equality Act 2010 [2]. In short, they claimed:

• that the Regulations were unlawful in that they removed or restricted existing statutory and Convention rights of parents to excuse their children from sex education at school where such teaching was contrary to the parents’ religious or philosophical conviction, and were both ultra vires the 2017 Act and contrary to Article 2 of Protocol 1 ECHR; and
• that the Guidance was unlawful because it encouraged or led to teaching in schools of moral/ideological views contrary to the parents’ religious or philosophical convictions – again, contrary to A2P1 ECHR or, alternatively, that it encouraged teaching amounting to State-sanctioned “indoctrination” [3].

Permission was refused on the grounds that the application was out of time and the underlying arguments did not have any serious or realistic prospect of success [34, 41].

Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief

The Prime Minister has appointed Fiona Bruce MP as his Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief in succession to Rehman Chishti MP, who resigned from the position in September because he could not support the Government’s Internal Markets Bill. The PM’s Special Envoy:

• brings together UK efforts to promote religious tolerance abroad and works on how the UK Government can protect and promote it internationally;
• works with the members of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance to raise awareness of cases of particular concern, advocating for those worldwide who are discriminated against or persecuted for their faith or belief; and
• supports the implementation of the Bishop of Truro’s recommendations on Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office support for persecuted Christians.

The appointment was condemned by Humanists UK, which said that Ms Bruce had been “a committed opponent” of freedom of belief for the non-religious in the UK.

The ECtHR and non-exhaustion of domestic remedies

In Bodnariu and Others v Norway [2020] ECHR Application no. 73890/16, the applicants were Pentecostal Christians. In the autumn of 2015, the child welfare services were told that two of the Bodnariu children had said at school that they were smacked at home [3]. In November 2015, the children were taken into emergency foster-care [4]; in 2016 the case was settled and the children returned home [9 & 10]. The applicants complained that the incident had violated their right to respect for their family life under Article 8 ECHR.

The Court pointed out that it was a fundamental feature of the machinery of protection under the Convention that it was subsidiary to the national systems safeguarding human rights; and the Court ought not “take on the role of Contracting States, whose responsibility it is to ensure that the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined therein are respected and protected on a domestic level” – hence the rule on exhaustion of domestic remedies [19].

The alleged violation relied on by the applicants had not been ongoing when they had lodged their application. They had not contested the Norwegian Government’s contention that they could have applied to the domestic courts for a declaratory judgment on their Convention rights and for compensation for the alleged shortcomings in the child welfare proceedings. They had not done so, nor had they provided any satisfactory explanation as to why not [20]. The application, therefore, had to be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies [21].

Law and religion cases from 2020

Quick links

• Jonathan Fox, Religious Freedom Institute: Secular Ideals vs. Religious Freedom: Non-Medical Child Circumcision and Ritual Slaughter of Animals.
• Erin Hunt and Kate Bradbury, Lexology: Key things to consider for a Covid wedding – #loveisnotcancelled.
• Jonathan Metzer, UK Human Rights Blog: 10 cases that defined 2020: including Dolan and McConnell and YY.

And finally…

For those with an hour or two to spare, there are the 1256 pages of COM(2020) 857 final, a.k.a

“ANNEX to the Recommendation for a Council Decision approving the conclusion, by the European Commission, of the Agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the European Atomic Energy Community for Cooperation on the Safe and Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy and the conclusion, by the European Commission, on behalf of the European Atomic Energy Community, of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the other part”. 

However, this would be stretching too far our remit of “issues of law and religion in the United Kingdom – with occasional forays further afield”.