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

Authors : Emre Akbulut

Pages : 177-220

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Publication Date : 2021-12-28

Article Type : Research

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, U