Assisted dying

On Tuesday, the Scottish Parliament rejected the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, which had been introduced by Liam McArthur (Orkney, Lib Dem), by 69 votes to 57. The draft report of the debate is here.

Places of Worship Renewal Fund

Further details are emerging – slowly – about how the Places of Worship Renewal Fund will work. In answer to a written question from Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme, Lab) on the future ability of places of worship (in England)  to reclaim VAT on repairs and maintenance works, Ian Murray, Minister of State at DCMS, said this:

“The Department has not made an assessment of the ability of places of worship to reclaim VAT following the ending of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme.

The Places of Worship Renewal Fund will have a budget of £23 million per year. The Places of Worship Renewal Fund will award grants for projects to cover capital works, rather than just the VAT element of a project, as is the case with the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme. In some cases, the amount granted could be greater than just the VAT element currently funded” [emphasis added].

For Women Scotland Ltd, Northern Ireland and the CJEU

Readers may recall that the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland applied to the High Court for leave to seek judicial review for clarification of how the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Equality Act 2010 in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16 in relation to Great Britain – basically, that the terms “man”, “woman” and “sex” in the Act must be interpreted as referring to biological sex – should be applied in the different legal context of Northern Ireland, where the Act does not apply.

Irish Legal News reports that last week the CJEU ruled in Shipova [2026] EUECJ C-43/24 [in French], a case about a Bulgarian trans woman living in Italy, that EU member states cannot refuse legal gender recognition to trans citizens who have exercised their right to free movement. The Court said at [54] that

“… tolerating discrimination based on the difference between biological sex and gender identity would amount to disregarding, in the case of transgender persons, the respect for dignity and freedom to which they are entitled and which the Court must protect.”

So far as we are aware, the application for judicial review in Northern Ireland is still pending.

Funeral arrangements and parental disagreement

The Independent reports a particularly sad case of parental conflict over funeral arrangements for a 17-year-old boy, Gabrielle Barbus, who died by suicide in December. The father, Mr Stefan Barbus, an Orthodox Christian, and the mother, Ms Georgia Opritescu, had divorced when Gabrielle was two. Mr Barbus wanted to bury Gabrielle, while Ms Opritescu wanted to cremate him and scatter his ashes in the Devon countryside. Mr Barbus argued that Gabrielle had been baptised as an Orthodox Christian, that burial respected the sanctity of the human body and soul, and that cremation was not acceptable because it destroyed the body and was irreversible, while Ms Opritescu said that her son had not grown up in a religious household and that she wanted him to be free and returned to nature by his ashes being scattered, not confined in a coffin or an urn in the ground.

According to the report, HHJ Klein found for Ms Opritescu on the basis that Gabrielle had had a closer relationship with his mother than with his father, and that, because of that closeness, it was more likely that he would have wished to honour his mother’s wishes.

We hope to publish a formal note if the text of the judgment becomes available.

Human rights in the UK

On Thursday, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission issued a Joint statement on the application of the European Convention on Human Rights, occasioned, it would appear, by the call last year from 27 Council of Europe member states, including the UK, to “re-balance” and “clarify” individual rights and state responsibilities in relation to migration.

The statement urges the UK Government “to commit to no reduction in rights protections. The principle of universality is fundamental to human rights: rights that can be removed from some people are no longer rights for everyone”.

Cardinal Becciu again

Readers may remember that Cardinal Becciu was stripped of his privileges as a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2020 and convicted of financial fraud by a Vatican court in 2023. He appealed, and Associated Press reports that the Vatican appeals tribunal has ruled that the original trial was defective and has ordered a retrial, beginning on 22 June.

And finally…

On Tuesday, Nick Timothy, currently the Shadow Lord Chancellor, posted on TwiX a complaint about Muslims engaging in mass prayer at an event in Trafalgar Square:

“Too many are too polite to say this. But mass ritual prayer in public places is an act of domination. The adhan – which declares there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger – is, when called in a public place, a declaration of domination. Perform these rituals in mosques if you wish. But they are not welcome in our public places and shared institutions. And given their explicit repudiation of Christianity they certainly do not belong in our churches and cathedrals. I am not suggesting everybody at Trafalgar Square last night is an Islamist. But the domination of public places is straight from the Islamist playbook.

To which Dominic Grieve, the former Conservative Attorney General, who subsequently quit the party over Brexit, posted this in reply:

“This is a very odd post from a Conservative who says he believes in freedom of expression under law and is a principal spokesman of the Free Speech Union. I appreciate that he does not like Islam and there is no reason why he should. As a Christian it is not my faith. But the use of Trafalgar Square (with permission) for religious events, Christian and other, goes back a long way. There have been prayers and hymns, chants and religious events performed there in the past. If such an event ‘shouldn’t happen again’ it raises the question of whether this is to apply to all religious events or just to Muslim ones. If to all, then we are moving like France to imposing secularism as a norm and it is contrary to our national tradition and does not seem to have helped develop social cohesion there. If just to Muslims, then it is an act of discrimination against them without any lawful basis. To achieve it you would have to enact discriminatory legislation targeted at Muslims. Is this what Nick Timothy is advocating?”

Good question… The Guardian reports some political reactions here; the Bishop of Willesden, Lusa Nsenga-Ngoy, the Church of England’s lead bishop for interfaith engagement, comments here; and the Bishop of Kirkstall, Arun Arora, comments here.