In re an Application by JR87, (NI CA, April 30, 2024), is an appeal in a challenge to the legality of religious education and collective worship practices in schools in Northern Ireland. In the case, parents who are humanists and are not raising their daughter in any religious tradition object to the Christian religious education and collective worship in their daughter's school. Among other things, they rely on Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Freedom of thought, conscience and religion) and Article 2 of Protocol 1 to the Convention which provides in part:
Education that is provided, whether public or private, must respect parents' religious and philosophical convictions. But so long as the curriculum and tuition are objective and pluralistic, the fact that it may conflict with some parents' convictions is not a breach.
The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal said in part:
In contrast to the secular reform of the education system in England and Wales facilitated through the 1870 and 1902 Education Acts, the Irish churches retained their ties to the school system. In Northern Ireland, the 1923 Education Act introduced by the first Belfast government maintained the influence of the main churches in our education system.
A hundred years later, the provision of mandatory Christian education as standard in controlled schools was challenged by way of judicial review in these proceedings. In the court below the applicants contended that the mandatory Christian religious education (“RE”) and collective worship (“CW”) currently provided in controlled primary schools in Northern Ireland is contrary to the religious freedom protections guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”)....
... [W]e uphold the trial judge’s finding that the curriculum at issue in the present case is not conveyed in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner. However, we hold that no breach of A2P1 has been established because of the existence of the unqualified statutory right of the parents to have their child excused wholly or partly from attendance at religious education or collective worship, or both in accordance with their request.
The Court's Communications Office also issued a summary of the decision. Law & Religion UK reports on the case.
