Withdrawing from the ECHR?
According to a report in The Times on Wednesday, in an interview with The Sun’s Never Mind the Ballots the Prime Minister said that controlling illegal immigration was “more important” than membership of the European Convention of Human Rights and that if Strasbourg blocked his attempt to deport asylum seekers he was ready to promise to withdraw from the ECHR. He insisted that he would not let a “foreign court” interfere with a policy that was “fundamental to our sovereignty”.
However, simply leaving the ECHR is not as easy as it may look to the PM. As David Allen Green points out, the Belfast Agreement explicitly requires the ECHR to be enforceable in the Northern Ireland courts – see Strand One para 5(b) – while the Human Rights Act 1998 can only be repealed by primary legislation. (He also notes that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Parliament Square really is a “foreign court” for the jurisdictions from which it hears appeals.) And as Steve Peers has explained in some detail, the obligation in EU law to respect Convention rights lives on, at least implicitly, in Article 763(1) of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and the UK:
“The Parties shall continue to uphold the shared values and principles of democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, which underpin their domestic and international policies. In that regard, the Parties reaffirm their respect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international human rights treaties to which they are parties” [emphasis added].
(If, however, the present Government were to withdraw from the Convention, a successor could presumably rejoin with very little fuss.)
Freedom of religion & belief at the UNHRC
On Thursday, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a comprehensive resolution on freedom of religion and belief. Inter alia, it emphasised that freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression were interdependent, interrelated and mutually reinforcing, stressed the role that they could play in the fight against all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief and expressed deep concern at emerging obstacles to the enjoyment of the right to freedom of religion or belief and at instances of religious intolerance, discrimination and violence.
It requested the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief with all the human, technical and financial assistance necessary for the effective fulfilment of the mandate. It also requested the Special Rapporteur to report annually to the Council and to the General Assembly. [With thanks to Mark Hill.]
Conscientious objection to military service again
In Kanatlı v Türkiye [2024] ECHR 208 [in French], Mr Kanatlı had performed his one year of active military service with the Turkish-Cypriot security forces in 2005, and in each of the following years he was called up for one day of service in military barracks as a reservist. He discharged that duty in 2006, 2007 and 2008, but in 2009, he became a conscientious objector and, in 2011, was prosecuted in the Security Forces Court for refusal to serve. He was fined, refused to pay, and served a ten-day prison sentence. Before the ECtHR, he complained of a violation of Article 9 ECHR for having refused on grounds of conscientious objection to perform his duty as a reservist.
The Court noted that the applicable legislation did not allow Mr Kanatlı to apply for exemption from reserve service and that he was liable to prosecution if he refused to perform it. Further, it made no provision for conscientious objectors to perform an alternative service. In several previous cases against Turkey, such as those brought by Jehovah’s Witnesses and those invoking pacifist beliefs, it had held that there had been violations of Article 9 and that failure to provide an alternative service and an accessible and effective procedure for an individual to establish that s/he could benefit from the right of conscientious objection did not strike a fair balance between the interests of society as a whole and those of conscientious objectors: see Tarhan v Turkey [2012] No. 9078/06 and Savda v Turkey (No. 2) [2016] ECHR 1000 [69]. Further:
“Article 9 does not authorise any restriction whatsoever on freedom of thought and conscience or on the freedom to have or to adopt the religion or belief of one’s choice. It distinguishes between freedom of thought, conscience, religion and the freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief. Freedom of conscience is protected without reservation in the same way as the right of everyone to have or adopt the religion or belief of their choice and is part of the kernel [noyau] of Article 9″ [60].
There had therefore been a violation of Article 9 [69].
Işıl Kurnaz comments on the case for Strasbourg Observers, here.
Climbing wall inside a Grade II-listed church tower
On 3 April, the Daily Telegraph reported that Pembroke College, Cambridge, had applied to install 10-metre-high climbing walls and ropes inside the 150-year-old tower of the former Emmanuel United Reformed Church. The church was sold to the college in 2020 after its congregation merged with the nearby St Columba’s URC to form Downing Place URC. Its nave and apse have since been converted into a 200-seat auditorium for lectures, events and performances, with its original pulpit, arches and wooden roof trusses preserved.
The college submitted planning application 24/01093/LBC to Cambridge City Council to transform the currently disused tower into what it says will be the “first rope climbing facility” in the city centre.
Neutral citations
Over the past week, it has been necessary for the Ecclesiastical Law Association to make changes to some of the more recent neutral citations. These revisions have been incorporated in our posts, and an updated list of 2023 Judgments, listed by Diocese, is here.
Blog development
Last week, our internet provider UK Web.Solutions Direct Ltd migrated its accounts to a new server with the latest hardware; this (we hope) will speed up the running of services. In addition, we are exploring moving the backup facilities from the internal WordPress system to an external provider.
Quick links:
- Eva Brems: Strasbourg Observers: In the Strasbourg Club: Executief van de Moslims van België and Others v Belgium: on the recent ECtHR case that held that a ban on ritual slaughter without pre-stunning did not violate Article 9, which we noted here.
- Philip Jones, Ecclesiastical Law: Clergy Discipline and Confidentiality: Gadd v Peers.
- James Murray, LinkedIn: University of Bristol – what the tribunal got wrong: on the judgment in Dr David Miller v University of Bristol [2024] ET 1400780/2022, which we noted here.
- Matthew Purvis, House of Lords Library: From the Hansard archives: Fixing a date for Easter?