Contenuti per la categoria: European Court of Human Rights

SUMMARY: 1. Introduction - 2. The meaning of State neutrality: some conceptual clarifications - 3. State’s neutrality vis-à-vis religious organizations: neutrality as absence of interference - 4. State’s neutrality vis-à-vis public education: neutrality as objectivity - 5. State neutrality vis-à-vis religious symbols in the public sphere: neutrality as exclusion of religion - 6. ‘Reversed’ patters of neutrality: the disruptive effect of Lautsi v. Italy - 7. Concluding remarks: decoding the patterns of State neutrality in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR.

ABSTRACT: This contribution discusses the notion of State neutrality in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. State neutrality has become increasingly relevant in the rulings of the ECtHR concerning religious freedom, with the Court explicitly resorting to the idea that States should act as neutral and impartial organizers of religious life within their community. Yet, the conception of State neutrality developed by the Court is inconsistent and often gives rise to criticism. By exploring the Court’s main jurisprudence in the context of religious disputes, religious education in public education, and the display of religious symbols in public spaces, this contribution seeks to disentangle the different understandings of neutrality employed by the Court and to critically engage with them.

SOMMARIO: 1. La direttiva europea 2000/78/CE e le organizzazioni di tendenza - 2. Il caso Egenberger c. Evangelisches Werk dinanzi alla Corte di giustizia - 3. La sindacabilità dei provvedimenti confessionali in materia di lavoro - 4. I controlimiti alla disapplicazione della direttiva - 5. L’obbligo giudiziario di conformazione del diritto nazionale a quello europeo - 6. Il divieto di discriminazione sul lavoro alla stregua della Carta dei diritti del cittadino europeo.

No difference of treatment on grounds of religion or belief and religious organizations

ABSTRACT: It’s the first time that the Court of Justice E.U. deals with the limits of the exemption from ban on discrimination on grounds of religion or belief in favour of organisations the ethos of which is based on religion or belief. The German law implemented softly the directive 2000/78/CE favouring that ethos, as interpreted by those organizations, and consequently limiting the judicial review merely to its plausibility. Viceversa according to the European Court the religion or belief must constitute a genuine, legitimate and justified occupational requirement, having regard to the organisation’s ethos and the proportionality principle (even though not explicitly recalled by the directive). So an exhaustive judgement allows an objective, not spiritualistic, evaluation of the occupational activities and therefore a stronger legal protection of workers under articles 10, 21 and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

SOMMARIO: 1. Attività d’impresa degli enti religiosi: il contenzioso come indicatore di performance del sistema italiano delle esenzioni - 2. L’endiadi ente/attività nella giurisprudenza: un caso recente - 3. I centri culturali islamici e i Gurdwara sikh: dalla indefinibilità alle soggettività del terzo settore - 4. Segue: La particolare difficoltà di qualificazione delle attività d’impresa nei luoghi di culto islamici - 5. Attività e accesso alle agevolazioni tributarie: la non discriminazione attraverso il Codice del Terzo settore (CTS) - 6. Segue: Le APS islamiche: la positiva esperienza nel Comune di Torino rispetto alla riconoscibilità dei soggettivi passivi tributari - 7. L’autonomia imperfetta, o secondo diritto comune, degli enti delle religioni prive di intesa.

Tax subjectivity and taxability of business activities held in religious places

ABSTRACT: The activities of ecclesiastical institutions, different from those of worship and religion and carried out by entrepreneurial method and rules of the free market, are subject to ordinary taxation. Otherwise, according to our Supreme Court and the European Court of Justice, they would go against the ban of so called incompatible state aid (art. 107, § 1, TFEU), as the status that every national law acknowledges to a artificial person is irrelevant. The Islamic cultural centers, the Sikh Gurdwara are generally in a limbo with a possible discrimination in the enforcement of the regulation under art. 8 of the Constitution. This paper, however, points out a few associative models, that the ecclesiastical institutions could implement so that their religious places can enjoy at least the common exemptions.

1 - La questione, cruciale nelle società multiculturali, dell’uso della simbologia religiosa è tornata sotto la supervisione della Corte europea dei diritti umani, che già se n’era occupata più volte per i segni portati attraverso o per complemento dell’abbigliamento personale e una volta anche per quelli esposti nei luoghi pubblici. Stavolta si trattava di citazioni, o meglio allusioni, evangeliche utilizzate a scopo di marketing da un'azienda lituana che produce vestiti: tre manifesti, diffusi anche sul web, con la foto di un uomo e una donna con l'aureola, lui tatuato in jeans, lei con un vestito bianco e una collana di perline, che sembra una corona di rosario. L'allusione a Gesù e Maria si trae dalle frasi esclamative: "Gesù, che pantaloni!", "Gesù, Maria! Cosa indossate!", "Cara Maria, che vestito!" (segue).

Sometimes freedom of expression overrides public morals: the case of advertising

ABSTRACT: This article examines the case Sekmadienis v. Lithuania, where the European Court of human rights found that the advertisements by a clothing company, despite using models and captions referring to “Jesus” and “Mary”, did not offend public morals. Nevertheless the balancing in favour, for once, of freedom of expression is due not to a revirement but, essentially, to two factors: the advertisements neither were gratuitously offensive nor incited hatred and, on the other hand, domestic authorities did not provide sufficient justifications for why such use of religious symbols would had been contrary to public morals. Therefore, it’s an assertion not of secularism in front of religion but – the author says quoting Pier Paolo Pasolini - a new laicity, that does not compete with religion: the advertising laicity, born in middle-class entropy.

I

SUMMARY: 1. Introduction - 2. General measures of the anti-terrorist laws; social surveillance and immigration control - 3. Antiterrorist laws and Islam: the securitization of Muslims in western countries - 4. The enforcement of measures affecting Muslim population not directly related to security: the vague criminalization of Islam - 5. Effects of the measures direct or indirectly justified on security reasons in religious freedom; specially related to Muslim population - 6. Closing remarks; positive statements in the construction of the European Union framework.

SOMMARIO: 1. Delimitazione del tema d’indagine - 2. Gli epigoni giurisprudenziali del caso Lautsi in una recente sentenza del Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale per la Sardegna - 3. L’art. 28 della legge francese di separazione del 9 dicembre 1905 - 4. Il banco di prova dei monumenti ai caduti edificati dopo la legge del 1905 - 5. Le oscillazioni interpretative della giurisprudenza amministrativa in materia di esposizione dei presepi - 6. I dubbi sulla “riscrittura” dell’art. 28 operata dal Conseil d’État - 7. Le sorti della statua “fuorilegge” di papa Giovanni Paolo II - 8. La “prova di forza” della Slovacchia nella vicenda della moneta commemorativa dei Santi Cirillo e Metodio - 9. Conclusioni: trasfigurazione dei simboli o della laicità?

“To each his own cross”. Disparate remarks concerning the public display of Christian symbols in the European public sphere (with specific regard to Article 28 of the French Separation Law)

ABSTRACT: The present essay takes as a starting point some recent case law on the so-called “institutional” display of religious symbols (and in particular Christian symbols), in Italy and other European countries. The analysis focuses on both the French legal system and some recent rulings of the administrative jurisprudence, which seems to mark a shift from the more consolidated and traditional reading keys of the “secularism”.

SOMMARIO: 1. Cittadinanza e identità religiosa - 2. Cittadinanza e pluralismo religioso - 3. “Cittadinanza integrativa” e libertà religiosa - 4. La Risoluzione 2076 (2015) e la Raccomandazione 2080 (2015).

Religious Freedom and Integrative Citizenship. Some Notes on 'Living Together' in a Plural Society

ABSTRACT: Circumcision concerns the religious identity of Jews and Muslims. In addition to these circumcisions which can be defined as "confessional-religious" there are also those related to local customs. These types deserve renewed attention after Resolution 1952 (2013) and Recommendation 2023 (2013) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, both concerning "the right of children to physical integrity", and subsequent resolutions 2076 (2015) and Recommendation 2080 (2015) devoted to "(R) Religion and Living together in a Democratic Society". Citizenship is, in fact, the much broader horizon to be found behind circumcision. While the first two documents tend to consider non-therapeutic circumcision as a possible assault to the physical integrity of children without, therefore, focusing on the profiles inherent the right to religious freedom and the possible inclusive value of its "recognition" for the purposes of universal citizenship, the latter two, focusing on the freedom of 'living together' according to the practices of each religion, seem to be more aware of the need to move towards the realization of a European, inclusive and plural citizenship. However, the category of 'living together', evanescent and ambiguous for its correlation with the principle of majority (as is evident from the most recent case law of the ECHR), requires a new approach that gives it greater objectivity. Concepts such as those of pluralism and plural citizenship, in which civic belonging and religious affiliation can live together, help to go in that direction, renewing, in the end, the membership of a Europe of peoples and not just of economies.

Pochi giorni or sono la Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo, con la pronuncia relativa al caso Belcacemi et Oussar c. Belgique, ha ritenuto che l’art. 653bis del codice penale belga, introdotto dalla legge 1° giugno 2011 - punendo quanti "sauf dispositions légales contraires, se présentent dans les lieux accessibles au public le visage masqué ou dissimulé en tout ou en partie, de manière telle qu’ils ne soient pas identifiables" con la pena "d’une amende de quinze euros à vingt-cinq euros (lire: de 120 à 200 euros) et d’un emprisonnement d’un jour à sept jours ou d’une de ces peines seulement" – non viola gli artt. 8, 9 e 14 della Convenzione. La Corte ha ritenuto di mettere l’accento in special modo sull’art. 9, poiché il divieto di indossare nello spazio pubblico un capo d’abbigliamento destinato a nascondere, in tutto o in parte, il viso pone degli interrogativi sia in ordine al rispetto della vita privata delle donne che desiderano portare il velo integrale per motivi legati ai loro convincimenti, sia in ordine alla loro libertà di manifestare questi convincimenti. (continua)

SOMMARIO: 1. “Provare e riprovare” - 2. Le ragioni dell’odierna urgenza. I quattro macro fenomeni: sicurezza, crisi economica, migrazioni e populismi - 3. Di alcuni effetti dei macro fenomeni - 4. Avanzando verso la disuguaglianza graduata. Selezione degli interlocutori, margine d’apprezzamento, e limiti della “democrazia costituzionale” - 5. Le scelte di Astrid, e alcuni punti fermi - 6. Una considerazione ancora.

A Framework of Freedom of Religion: for today, it urges "to try and try again" to secure religious peace
ABSTRACT: This article analyzes the theme of the continuing lack of a law on religious freedom in Italy, despite the fact that seventy years have passed since the Republican Constitution was approved. According to the Author, the combination of four macro-phenomena (security, economic crisis, immigration, populism) nowadays urges the Italian Parliament to start debating how to implement the rights guaranteed under art. 19 Cost. - irrespective of the nationality of the person - and to regulate the procedures for reaching the agreements provided for in the third paragraph of art. 8 Cost. using the well-articulated bill proposed by the Astrid study group. The Author, finally, identifies a number of firm points necessary in his view to ensure respect for religious pluralism, secularism of the state and “religious peace”.

SOMMARIO: 1. La forza sociale delle religioni negli attuali scenari geopolitici - 2. Libertà religiosa, selezione lavorativa e integrazione nel mondo del lavoro - 3. La tutela della libertà religiosa nel rapporto di lavoro -3.1 Le discriminazioni religiose nei rapporti di lavoro nel quadro del diritto primario dell’Unione europea - 3.2 La giurisprudenza comunitaria - 3.3 L’incidenza del precetto religioso sul rapporto di lavoro - 3.4 La “presenza” delle religioni nei luoghi di lavoro: profili simbologici - 4. Istanze religiose e diritto negoziato nelle politiche d’integrazione - 5. Diritto, religione e sfide dell’integrazione.