Source: http://www.freedomofconscience.eu/the-protection-of-minors-against-excesses-of-sects-rapporteur-mr-rudy-salles/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 04:04:10+00:00

Document:
2014-04-02-Protections-of-minors-against-excesses-of-sects 1. Alliance Defending Freedom [ADF] is a legal organization of 2300 allied lawyers, over 40 full time lawyers and has offices internationally including Europe, North America, Latin America and India. ADF enjoys accreditation at the European Parliament, Fundamental Rights Agency (for which it is also represented on the Advisory Panel) and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. ADF has also garnered Consultative Status with the United Nations. ADF has been involved in over forty cases at the European Court of Human Rights and is the leading religious liberties legal organization today practicing before the Court.
2. Institutionally, ADF is greatly concerned with the adoption by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Report of Mr. Rudy Salles entitled: The Protection of Minors Agaisnt Excesses of Sects. ADF at the outset notes the severe chilling effect of religious freedom which results when government unduly interferes with church autonomy. To this extent, France provides an example of egregious hyper-monitoring of religious groups by Miviludes, to which the Rapporteur Mr. Salles has concrete connections.
4. Criminal and civil law provide ample protection from potential abuses of minors and other individuals from cults. To provide unfettered discretion to the State to extra-judicially monitor religious groups injures the very substance of religious freedom, parental rights and church autonomy. The following memorandum will outline the importance of these principles with regard to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and international law.
6. Religious freedom has not come easily to Europe. It has come over centuries with much blood spilled and much ink spent. With the evolution of human rights treaty law following World War II, freedom of thought, conscience and religion found its place among the substantive rights enumerated in many of the primary human rights treaties of the 20th Century, including the European Convention of Human Rights. These instruments recognized the dangers inherent in States seizing absolute power and restraining individual liberties and the common good. The substance of all these documents was the same; that States cannot be entrusted with unfettered discretion to govern over individual actions or to ensure that a worldview is implemented which conforms to its own specific set of values. This same principle, however, must be applied equally to the treaty bodies and courts entrusted with safe-guarding the rights enumerated in these documents, including the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
11. The European Court of Human Rights has further defined Article 9 to require States to restrain themselves from interfering with church autonomy or the right to manifest religious beliefs: “[F]acts demonstrating a failure by the authorities to remain neutral in the exercise of their powers in this domain must lead to the conclusion that the State interfered with the believers’ freedom to manifest their religion within the meaning of Article 9 of the Convention.”14 It therefore strains credulity for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to recommend Member States to embark on a process of monitoring the legitimacy of religious beliefs and in essence “doing theology”. Such monitoring would strike at the very heart of the State neutrality principle.
13. The clear and unwavering jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights regarding State neutrality towards religious groups, coupled with the growing number of judgments from the Court against High Contracting Parties for improperly monitoring religious groups, stands in sharp contrast to the recommendations set forth by Mr. Salles. As Member States are bound by the Convention, so too should PACE be held to a standard whereby it’s reports and recommendations do not contradict the governing law of Europe regarding religious liberty. The Report on The Protection of Minors Against Excesses of Sects should therefore be categorically rejected by the Parliamentary Assembly.
encroachments of those rights by Member States on the other. Adoption of the Salles Report would further damage the rights of European parents in educating their children according to their own religious and philosophical convictions. Examples of such abuses abound in the casework of Alliance Defending Freedom.
17. When the State becomes the arbiter of acceptable child-rearing, it becomes the dictator of public opinion and social direction, thereby defrauding democracy. This is not an issue of child abuse or neglect; rather, it is a matter of conscience, belief, preference, and ideology. If the State asserts a right to determine which beliefs a parent can or cannot instill in his or her own children, it infringes upon a fundamental liberty upon which the social order is established. Liberty, rightly understood, cannot be vested in the State itself, for such becomes tyranny or fascism. The State’s role is to recognize, respect, and protect liberty: the liberty of the individual, the family, and the people at large.
18. This legal trend, as pursued by the Salles Report—the State taking over parents’ role as the custodians and guides for their children’s development—threatens religious liberty and freedoms of conscience, belief, and even speech. For if the State can dictate what a child believes; it can control the contours of speech in society at large. In effect, the State gains a monopoly on socially-acceptable principles and dialogue, and excludes from the public sphere dialogue on issues they label as “fundamentalist” or “abnormal” beliefs. This is not through direct regulation—at least not yet—but through regulating the family, which is the atom of society and the seedbed of future citizens.
19. Numerous international documents confirm parents as primary and principal educators of their children. By that fact alone, parents have the greatest rights and the greatest responsibility in the education of their children. State institutions should assist them in this task; schools must seek the cooperation of parents and should not in any case artificially displace the rights of children and the rights of parents by imposing on the children an education contrary to the one they receive from their parents.
Article 18: 1. States Parties shall use their best efforts to ensure recognition of the principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child. Parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians, have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child. The best interests of the child will be their basic concern.
24. The European Convention of Human Rights, Protocol 1, Article 2, mirrors this same idea: “In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.” The term philosophical convictions are interpreted by the European Convention of Human Rights as a whole22 and extend to include pedagogical beliefs; those being the parents’ beliefs as to the best way of educating their children.
25. Undoubtedly, therefore, parents must be at the centre of the decision making process when it comes to curricula which deeply affect the value system of the child. The school systems should therefore work on harmonizing institutional education with parental upbringing.
26. The proposals put forth by Mr. Salles have already led to the aforementioned abuses of parental rights. Practically speaking, if the recommendations of Mr. Salles were adopted by Member States, we would thereafter see even greater limitations placed on parental rights with regards to opt-outs of ideologically offensive classes, home education on confessional school autonomy.
27. The safeguarding of the possibility of pluralism in education is essential for the preservation of a democratic society.23 Parents must be able to choose their children’s schools, whether public or private.24 While State subsidization of private or confessional schools is not guaranteed by Protocol 1, Article 225, the right to establish private or confessional schools is.26 Alternative forums for education, such as home schooling, must also be recognized as falling within the weighty protections afforded to parental rights within the corpus of international law.
32. Both the European Court of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights guarantee the right of establishment of private schools.39 The right to establish private educational institutions also assumes the right of parents to choose between public and private education; or between different private or confessional schools. Again, the distinction would be illusory and therefore meaningless is some level of academic freedom was not allowed in the development of school curriculum. The chilling effect of the proposed policies of Mr. Salles would indeed directly violate the clear meaning of these provisions in international law.
33. The right to education and respect for parental authority over their children assumes some level of freedom. One aspect of this right is that State schools cannot exercise a monopoly in education. As Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights dictates: “The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to choose for their children schools, other than those established by the public authorities, which conform to such minimum educational standards as may be laid down or approved by the State and to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.”40 Among the educational options that should be made available to all parents because of international norms is the right to home educate.
34. Home schooling has taken the place of a customary international right among the vast majority of democratic nations. The level of coordination and infrastructural support within the home education sphere casts grave shadows on any argument that mandatory school attendance is a legitimate means of protecting public order. The cases in which ADF has defended home schooling parents who have been imprisoned, sought refugee status or had their children put into foster care (all cases where any physical or mental abuse or proof of neglect was lacking) stands in stark contrast to the extreme acts of the State in separating families in the name of ideology.
35. The following memorandum has laid out the international treaty law and jurisprudence regarding parental rights and church autonomy. Both concepts are central to the enjoyment of freedom of thought, conscience and religion which requires a duty of State neutrality. The proposal of Mr. Salles strikes at the very heart of these protections and creates a climate ripe for abuse by State actors. This memorandum has also outlined egregious violations of both religious freedom and parental rights which have occurred as a result of the same policies being promoted by the Salles Report. For a free and democratic Europe, one in which people of all faiths and philosophies can enjoy equal protection under the law, Alliance Defending Freedom urges the Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to reject the Report on The Protection of Minors Against Excesses of Sects.
1 ECHR, Affaire Schmidt c. France, application no. 35109/02, judgment of 26 July 2007.
2 See e.g.: ECHR, Affaire Eglise Evangelique Missionaire et Salaun v. France, application no. 25502/07, judgment of 31 January 2013.
3 E.g.: Turkey. Article 2 of the Turkish Constitution holds that it is a “democratic, secular and social state.” Article 4 makes these basic principles non-derogable. TURK. CONST. Articles 2, 4 (Law No. 2709).
4 E.g.: The United Kingdom. Cf. The Act of Settlement, 12 & 13 Will. 3, c. 2, arts 1-3 (1701) (Eng.).
5 ECHR, Darby v. Sweden, EUR. COMM’N H.R. DEC. & REP. § 47 (1989).
6 See: ECHR, Koppi v. Austria, 10 December 2009, no. 33001/03; ECHR, Religionsgemeinschaft der Zeugen Jehovas and Others v. Austria, 31 July 2008, no. 40825/98; ECHR, Verein der Freunde der Christengemeinschaft and Others v. Austria, 26 February 2009, no. 76581/01.
8 ECHR, 25 May 1993, Kokkinakis v. Greece, Series A No. 260-A, § 31: AFDI, 1994, p. 658.
9 Kokkinakis op.cit., ECHR, 23 June 1993, Hoffmann v. Austria, Series A, No. 255-C: JDI, 1994, p. 788; Otto-Preminger-Institut, op. cit.; ECHR, 26 September 1996, Manoussakis and Others v. Greece, Reports 1996-IV: AFDI, 1996, p. 749.
11 ECHR, 26 October 2000, Hasan & Chaush v. Bulgaria (Appl. No. 30985/96), § 62.
12 ECHR, 13 December 2001, Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia and Others v. Moldova, Appl. no. 45701/99., § 123.
13 ECHR, Serif v. Greece, application no. 38178/97, judgment of 14 December 1999, § 49.
14 ECHR, 26 October 2000, Hasan & Chaush v. Bulgaria (Appl. No. 30985/96), § 78.
15 ECHR, Case of Kosteski v. The Former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia, application no. 55170/00, judgment of 13 April 2006, § 44. See also: Karlheinz Schmidt v. Germany, judgment of 18 July 1994, Series A no. 291-B, pp. 32-33, § 24, and ECHR, Camp and Bourimi v. the Netherlands, application no. 28369/95, judgment of 3 October 2000, § 37.
16 ECHR, 26 September 1996, Manoussakis v. Greece (RJD 1996, p. 1346), § 47.
21Charles F. Potter, Humanism: A New Religion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930).
22 ECHR, 25 February 1982, Campbell and Cosans v. the United Kingdom, Series A, No. 48, § 36: CDE, 1986, p. 230.
23 ECHR, Kjeldsen, Busk Madsen and Pederson v. Denmark, Judgment of 7 December 1976, Application No. 5095/71, 5920/72, 5926/72, § 50.
24 ECHR, 5 December 1990, Graeme v. the United Kingdom, 64 DR 158.
25 See e.g.: ECHR, X and Y v. the United Kingdom, App. No. 9461/81, Eur. Comm’n H.R. Dec. & Rep. 210 (1982).
28 Kjeldsen, Busk Madsen and Pederson v. Denmark, op. cit.
29 ECHR, Manoussakis and Others v. Greece, Reports 1996-IV: AFDI, 1996, p. 749, § 47.
30 Kjeldsen, Busk Madsen and Pederson v. Denmark, op. cit., § 53.
31 Id., at 25, 28.
34 Case of Folgero and Others v. Norway, op. cit..
37 See e.g.: United Nations, Convention on the Rights of the Child, , G.A. Res. 44/25, annex, 44 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 167, U.N. Doc. A/44/49 (1989), entered into force 9.2.1990, Article 14.
38 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Recommendation 1762, Academic Freedom and University Autonomy, 30 June 2006, § 4.3.
39 See e.g.: ECHR, 5 December 1990, Graeme v. the United Kingdom, 64 DR 158; ECHR, X and Y v. the United Kingdom, App. No. 9461/81, Eur. Comm’n H.R. Dec. & Rep. 210 (1982). See also: ICESCR, supra n. 21, Article 13(4).
32 See e.g.: Natan Lerrner, Group Rights and Discrimination in International Law, Chapter 10 (1991) noting the overwhelmingly strong lobby in favor of guarantees for religious education under the Minorities Treaty established by the League of Nations.
33 Kjeldsen, Busk Madsen and Pederson v. Denmark, op. cit., § 52. See also: Case of Folgero and Others v. Norway, App. No. 15472/02, judgment of 29 June 2007., § 84(c).
40 United Nations, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, New York, 16 December 1966.

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