Directions in Religious Pluralism in Europe: Examining Grassroots Mobilisations in the Shadow of European Court of Human Rights Religious Freedom Jurisprudence

Religion and education

In Romania, the end of socialism brought a change in the official relationship between religion and the state. In the past three decades, religious groups have been able to influence the presence of religion in the public educational system by teaching religious education classes, making public statements regarding the presence of religious symbols (especially Orthodox icons) in classrooms, and taking certain stands with respect to the introduction of sex education in the school curriculum, to name but a few.

Under the heading ‘religion and education’, Popa and his colleague Liviu Andreescu (see http://grassrootsmobilise.eu/team/) are exploring the conditions under which the European Court of Human Rights and its jurisprudence have, at different points in time and to different extents, been relevant for defining the place of religion in public education in present-day Romania.  Their research shows that the ECtHR and its jurisprudence have been particularly relevant for actors from religious and secularist NGOs engaged in religion-and-education issues (see ‘Contesting the Place of Religion in Education in Post-Communist Romania: Strategic Uses of the ECtHR and its Case Law’, paper in submission). Both religious and secular actors have used litigation as a strategy of contention and keep themselves constantly updated on the ECtHR’s decisions in order to adjust their mobilization strategies accordingly.

The legal status of religious minorities

This aspect of Popa’s fieldwork aims to provide an understanding of the situations in which the jurisprudence of the ECtHR is invoked to uphold the right to religious freedom for representatives of minority religious communities.

In Romania, the law regulating religious freedom (Law 489/2006) distinguishes between recognized ‘religious denominations’ (culte), ‘religious associations’ (asociații religioase) and ‘religious groups’ (grupuri religioase). While the religious communities falling in the first two categories benefit from state support (in the form of financial allocations and tax exemptions), those falling in the latter category are simply granted the right to practise their religion.

Popa’s research suggests that, in recent years, the jurisprudence of the ECtHR has been particularly relevant for members of ‘religious groups’, who receive almost no protection from the current law on religious freedom. The Strasbourg Court and its jurisprudence have been relevant especially for the representatives of those religious communities who have had to defend their right to religious freedom in domestic courts of law (see preliminary report here).

Defining marriage and the family

The exploration of the influence of the ECtHR’s jurisprudence on the dynamics of religious life should not be restricted to that segment of the Court’s decisions speaking directly to the right to religious freedom (Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights). Through its recent decisions in the domain of marriage and family relations (e.g., regarding legal protection for same-sex couples in Oliari and others v. Italy), the ECtHR may have played a role in stimulating interconfessional cooperation aiming to reinforce the definition of the nuclear family as constituted exclusively through the marriage of a man and a woman. In Romania, a multi-faith platform bringing together religious organizations, NGOs, and public figures has recently taken shape, aiming to change the Romanian Constitution to that end. Popa is studying these processes of interconfessional cooperation in Romania in order to understand the role of the ECtHR’s decisions in stimulating them, as well as the broader implications of such processes for religious pluralism in the country.