The Department of Education for Northern Ireland (in the matter of an application by JR87 and another for judicial review (Appellant) [2025] UKSC 40
This interesting decision shows the intersection between the right to education and the right to freedom of religion under the ECHR. These are fast evolving rights, particularly Article 9, whose “freedom” stipulation is becoming more important than the “religion” right. Article 9 is more and more often taken to cover the right not to cleave to any religion at all.
In this case the arguments were focussed on the right to education under Article 2 Protocol 1 of the Convention, taken together with Article 9. The main issue before the Supreme Court can be briefly stated. Did religious education and collective worship provided in a school in Northern Ireland breach the rights of a child, and the child’s parents, under Article 2 of the First Protocol (“A2P1”) to the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) read with Article 9 ECHR?
What is particularly interesting and unusual about this judgment is that it emerges from Northern Ireland with its own history of sectarianism and religious division.
Continue @ UKHRB.
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