SUMARIO: 1. Introducción: las manifestaciones de la confesionalidad inglesa y su creciente cuestionamiento por la doctrina científica - 2. Confesionalidad estatal y sistema educativo en Inglaterra - 3. Los actos de culto colectivo en la escuela pública ante la High Court.

The Place of Religion in State-funded Schools of England: the Act of Collective Worship for the First Time on Trial at the High Court

ABSTRACT: Collective Worship that needs to be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character is currently a statutory requirement in all State-funded schools under English law. This legal requirement, along with the inevitable presence in this same type of schools of religious education that also has to reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian, whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain, are both two requirements that have been frequently considered as very controversial and arising from them are serious concerns about their compliance with human rights legal framework. Very recently a High Court action has been launched against this law on collective worship, in a case that will be heard on 29 November 2019 (Lee and Lizanne Harris v. Oxford Diocesan Schools Trust). This paper gives notice of this recent judicial challenge and briefly explores its main legal implications.