Limitations on Religious Headdress and Two Different Viewpoints: Inferences from Findings of the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee

Year 2021, Volume: 38 Issue: 2, 177 - 220, 28.12.2021

Emre Akbulut

Abstract

Keywords

Right to manifest religion or belief, religious headdress, the European Court of Human Rights, United Nations Human Rights Committee, the principle of secularism., Right to manifest religion or belief, religious headdress, the European Court of Human Rights, United Nations Human Rights Committee, the principle of secularism.

Limitations on Religious Headdress and Two Different Viewpoints: Inferences from Findings of the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee

Abstract

Wearing religious headdress, as a way of manifestation of religion or
belief, is protected under the freedom of religion or belief in international
human rights law. In their respective articles, the European Convention
on Human Rights and the United Nations International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights prescribed nearly the same limitation regime for
external dimension of the freedom of religion or belief, namely the right to
manifest religion or belief. However, it has been observed in the past few
decades that supervisory bodies of these two treaties, the European Court
of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee,
have reached different outcomes in very similar disputes concerning
wearing religious headdresses. Departing from this fact, this study aims
at seeking an answer to the question of ‘why and in what way the case-law
of the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights
Committee on the right to manifest religion or belief differs from each other in
the religious headdress cases’. To this end, after examining several samples
from judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and views of
the United Nations Human Rights Committee that are most capable of
illustrating the divergence in their case-law, it will be tried to find out
some possible reasons and consequences of the divergence between the
two institutions’ rulings on the same matter. In this context, the study will
specifically dwell on the two bodies’ approaches to the legitimate aim criterion, the principle of secularism and states’ margin of appreciation in
limiting the right to manifest religion or belief.

Keywords

Right to manifest religion or belief, religious headdress, the European Court of Human Rights, United Nations Human Rights Committee, the principle of secularism., Right to manifest religion or belief, religious headdress, the European Court of Human Rights, United Nations Human Rights Committee, the principle of secularism

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