Background

In Executief van de Moslims van België and Others v Belgium [2024] ECHR 137, the Flemish and Walloon Regions had both issued decrees prohibited the slaughter of animals without pre-stunning while providing for reversible stunning in cases of ritual slaughter. The applicants, organisations representing Muslims in Belgium and Muslim and Jewish nationals, lodged an unsuccessful application with the Constitutional Court to have those decrees set aside.

Before the ECtHR, they complained that the ban prevented the slaughter of animals in accordance with the precepts of their religions and that they faced the difficulty, if not impossibility, of obtaining halal and kosher meat. The Court had previously held that the ritual slaughter of animals fell within the scope of the right to manifest one’s religion as a matter of “observance” within the meaning of Article 9. It had also held that dietary restrictions or prescriptions might fall within the “practice” of a religion.

The judgment

The Court said that it was not for it to decide whether or not stunning prior to slaughter was in conformity with the dietary precepts of Muslim and Jewish believers [85 & 86]. It was apparent from the parliamentary debates leading to the adoption of the two decrees that the absence of pre-stunning was an aspect of the religious ritual that attained a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance, at least for certain Jews and Muslims, and there had therefore been an interference with the applicants’ freedom of religion [87 & 88].

The Court had also previously acknowledged on several occasions that the protection of animals was a matter of general interest under Article 10. In the present case, it noted that, according to the Constitutional Court, the promotion of the protection and well-being of animals as sentient beings could be considered a moral value shared by many people in the Flemish and the Walloon Regions, as evidenced by the adoption of the disputed decrees by a very large majority of parliamentarians in the two regional assemblies. The Court saw no reason to call that into question [98].

In the Court’s view, “the protection of public morals” under Article 9(2) could not be understood as being intended solely to protect human dignity ­and the concept of “morals” was an evolving situation [95 & 96]. The promotion of the protection and welfare of animals as sentient beings could be regarded as a moral value shared by many people in the Flemish and Walloon Regions. Moreover, other states parties had enacted similar legislation, thus confirming the growing importance of animal welfare considerations, and the CJEU and the Belgian Constitutional Court had both held that the protection of animal welfare was an ethical value that was increasingly important in a democratic society which should be taken into account in assessing restrictions on the outward manifestation of religious beliefs.

The ECtHR was therefore entitled to consider the growing importance attached to the protection of animal welfare, including when examining the legitimacy of an aim pursued by a restriction on the freedom to manifest one’s religion. The protection of animal welfare could be linked to the concept of “public morals” for the purposes of Article 9(2).

Given the gradual evolution in favour of greater protection of animal welfare, the national authorities had to be afforded a wide margin of appreciation. The regional legislators had sought to weigh up the competing rights and interests in the course of a thorough legislative process and had expressly given the reasons for their decision in the light of the requirements of freedom of religion, having examined the impact of the measure on that freedom and, in particular, having carried out a lengthy proportionality analysis, while in their judicial review the CJEU and the Constitutional Court had fully taken into account in detail the requirements of Article 9, as interpreted by the ECtHR.

The impugned decrees stated that, where animals were slaughtered in accordance with special methods required for religious rites, the stunning method applied would be reversible and non-lethal. Based on scientific studies and extensive consultation with interested parties, the parliamentary scrutiny had concluded that no less radical measure could sufficiently achieve the objective of reducing the harm to animal welfare at the time of slaughter. The regional legislators had sought a proportionate alternative to the obligation of prior stunning, taking into consideration the right claimed by persons of the Muslim and Jewish faiths to manifest their religion in the face of the growing importance attached to the prevention of animal suffering in the respective regions. They had taken care to adopt a measure which did not go beyond what was necessary to achieve the aim pursued.

It was not for the Court to determine whether this alternative satisfied the precepts of the religion of which the applicants were followers; however, its existence showed that the authorities concerned had sought to weigh up the rights and interests at stake and to strike a fair balance between them. The Court therefore considered that the impugned measures fell within the margin of appreciation afforded to the national authorities in this sphere.

The Court concluded unanimously that the Flemish and Walloon authorities had not exceeded their margin of appreciation. They had taken a measure that was justified in principle and which could be considered proportionate to the aim pursued, namely the protection of animal welfare as an aspect of “public morals”.

There had not, therefore, been a violation of Article 9 or of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 9.