Unsurprisingly, a very quiet week…

Smyth Review: update from independent reviewer

The Church of England has announced that the independent reviewer of the Smyth affair, Keith Makin, has confirmed that the Learning Lessons Review is now reaching its final stages. The review team has analysed previously unpublished documents, including contemporaneous correspondence and notes from the relevant period, and the next stage will be consultation with victims.  This is intended to begin in the week commencing 9 January 2023. Once this is completed, it will be followed by a representation process involving individuals and organisations who will be named and criticised in the published report. If you wish to be part of the consultation with victims, and are not already in contact with the review team, contact Keith Makin at keith.makin@independentreviews.live.

Religion at work

On Wednesday, business psychology consultancy Pearn Kandola published Religion at Work: Experiences of Christian employees, based on answers from the 1042 Christians across the UK and US who took part in an online survey earlier in 2022.

Of the 371 UK-based Christian employees, 82 per cent chose not to wear religious dress or symbols at work. Of the 66 UK-based Christian employees who did choose to wear religious dress or symbols at work, 36 per cent said that they did not feel comfortable doing so (which makes one wonder why they did it) and almost half of all UK-based Christian employees agreed that their organisations could do more to make employees feel comfortable wearing religious dress or symbols.

Taking annual leave for religious festivals was not a problem in the UK or the US: just 2.5 per cent of all Christian participants said that their employer had rejected such a request, while 14 per cent said that they did not feel comfortable discussing religious festivals at work.

Quick links

• Anurag Deb, UK Human Rights Blog: Protest and proportionality in the Supreme Court: The Safe Access Zones Bill Reference [2022] UKSC 32.
• Ecclesiastical Law Society: Newsletter No. 4/2022.
• Tabitha Hutchison, UK Human Rights Blog: The Weekly Round-up: Online Safety Bill, access to abortion and religious freedom: includes a helpful note on N (A Child), Re (Instruction of Expert) [2022] EWCA Civ 1588, an appeal about a case management order that provided for the appointment of a female independent social worker to determine child arrangements and education for an 8-year-old Chasidic Jewish boy.
• Aidan O’Neill KC: ADVICE re proposals for the Scottish Parliament to legislate with a view to bringing to an end in Scotland “Conversion Practices” related to individuals’ sexual orientation and separately to their “gender”: published by the Christian Institute, for which Mr O’Neill is acting.
• Eugenia Relaño Pastor: Talk About: Law and Religion: Cisnormativity and Christiannormativity at the Strasbourg Court: Reflections on Gender and Religion.
• Russell Sandberg: Responses to Consultations on New GCSEs: on Qualifications Wales’s proposed syllabuses for GCSE Religious Studies and GCSE Social Studies.

AND A HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR READERS, WHEN IT COMES