In The King (On the application of TTT) v. Michaela Community Schools Trust, (High Ct., Kings Bench, April 16, 2024), a British trial court in an 83-page opinion rejected a Muslim student's challenge to a secular secondary school's Prayer Ritual Policy (PRP) that prevented the student from using part of her lunch break to perform her Duhr prayer. The policy was adopted by the high-performing school, in which half of the students were Muslim, after prayer by some students led to divisions within the student body and to threatening social media posts.
The court said in part:
It seems to me that this is a case ... where the Claimant at the very least impliedly accepted, when she enrolled at the School, that she would be subject to restrictions on her ability to manifest her religion. She knew that the School is secular and her own evidence is that her mother wished her to go there because it was known to be strict....
... [W]hilst accepting that her belief is that she should perform Duhr during the relevant 25 minutes of the lunch break in the winter months, and that this belief falls within Article 9 [of the European Convention on Human Rights], the evidence indicates that the effect of the PRP is that Qada is available to mitigate the failure to pray within the allotted window....
... [B]alancing the adverse effects of the PRP on the rights of Muslim pupils at the School with the aims of the PRP and the extent to which it is likely to achieve those aims, I have concluded that the latter outweighs the former and that the PRP is proportionate....
The court also rejected the claim that the prayer policy violated Britain's Equality Act. The court also issued a press release summarizing the decision. The Guardian reports on the decision. [Thanks to Scott Mange for the lead.]
