Source: http://bib26.pusc.it/can/p_martinagar/lrgiurisprinternaz/HUDOC/AreVeTsedek/VeTsedekFr27417-95en.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 01:52:56+00:00

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1. The case was referred to the Court in accordance with the provisions applicable prior to the entry into force of Protocol No. 11 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (�the Convention�) by the European Commission of Human Rights (�the Commission�) on 6 March 1999 and then by the French Government (�the Government�) on 30 March 1999 (Article 5 � 4 of Protocol No. 11 and former Articles 47 and 48 of the Convention).
2. The case originated in an application (no. 27417/95) against the French Republic lodged with the Commission under former Article 25 of the Convention by an association registered under French law, the Jewish liturgical association Cha'are Shalom Ve Tsedek (�the applicant association�) on 23 May 1995. The applicant association alleged a violation of Article 9 of the Convention on account of the French authorities' refusal to grant it the approval necessary for access to slaughterhouses with a view to performing ritual slaughter in accordance with the ultra-orthodox religious prescriptions of its members. It further alleged a violation of Article 14 of the Convention in that only the Jewish Consistorial Association of Paris (Association consistoriale isra�lite de Paris � �the ACIP�), to which the large majority of Jews in France belong, had received the approval in question.
3. The Commission declared the application admissible on 7 April 1997. In its report of 20 October 1998 (former Article 31 of the Convention), it expressed the opinion, by fourteen votes to three, that there had been a violation of Article 9 taken in conjunction with Article 14, and by fifteen votes to two that no separate issue arose under Article 9 taken alone.
4. Before the Court, the applicant association was represented by Mr J. Molini�, of the Conseil d'Etat and Court of Cassation Bar. The Government were represented by their Agent, Mr R. Abraham, Director of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
5. On 31 March 1999 a panel of the Grand Chamber decided that the case should be examined by the Grand Chamber (Rule 100 � 1 of the Rules of Court).
6. The Government filed a memorial; the applicant association did not, but stated that it referred to the Commission's report. Observations were also received on 15 October 1999 from the Chief Rabbi of France, Mr J. Sitruk, and the ACIP, to which the President had given leave to intervene in the written procedure (Article 36 � 2 of the Convention and Rule 61 � 3).
8. On 22 November 1999 the association's lawyer sent a letter saying that Mr Bitton had resigned the office of president of the association in February 1999, with immediate effect, that another president had been elected by the governing body and that the applicant association had no intention of withdrawing its application.
9. On 24 November 1999 Mr Bitton, in a fax sent from the ACIP's fax machine, sent a copy of the minutes of the association's executive committee dated 15 November confirming the withdrawal.
10. On 26 November 1999 the applicant association's lawyer stated that these minutes were a forgery, that the alleged meeting of the executive committee on 15 November had never taken place and that the secretary-general and treasurer mentioned in the minutes were unknown to the association, of which they had never been members. He also produced a copy of Mr Bitton's letter of resignation, dated 26 February 1999, a copy of the minutes of the governing body's meeting on 2 March 1999 at which the new president, Mr N. Betito, had been elected and a copy of the attendance sheet initialled by those present.
Mr�� F. Molini�, of the Paris Bar,������������������������� Adviser.
The Court heard addresses by Mr J. Molini� for the applicant association and Mr Dobelle for the Government.
13. Kashrut is the name given to all the Jewish laws on the types of food which may be eaten and how to prepare them. The main principles applying to kosher food are to be found in the Torah, the holy scripture comprising the first five books of the Bible � the Pentateuch � namely Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
16. The Torah (Lev. vii, 26 and 27; xvii, 10-14) prohibits consumption of the blood of authorised mammals and birds, and slaughter must be carried out �as the [Lord has] commanded� (Deut. xii, 21). It is forbidden to eat meat from animals that have died of natural causes or have been killed by other animals (Deut. xiv, 21). It is likewise forbidden to eat meat from an animal showing signs of disease or blemishes at the time of slaughter (Num. xi, 22). Meat and other products of permitted animals (such as milk, cream or butter) must be eaten and prepared separately, in and with separate utensils, because the Torah prohibits the cooking of a kid in its mother's milk (Exod. xxii; Deut. xiv, 21).
17. With a view to ensuring compliance with all the prohibitions laid down in the Torah, later commentators established very detailed rules concerning, in particular, the approved method of slaughter, initially by handing down the oral tradition but later by compiling an encyclopaedic collection of commentaries � the Talmud.
19. In addition, immediately after slaughter, the animal must be examined for any signs of disease or anomaly; if there is the slightest doubt on that point, the meat is declared unfit for consumption. Ritual slaughter � shechitah � may be performed only by a shochet, who must be a devout man of unimpeachable moral integrity and scrupulous honesty. Lastly, until it comes to be sold, the meat must be kept under the supervision of a kashrut inspector. The competence and personal integrity of ritual slaughterers and kashrut inspectors are subject to continuous appraisal by a religious authority. In order to guarantee consumers that their meat has been slaughtered in accordance with the prescriptions of Jewish law, the religious authority certifies it as �kosher�. Such certification gives rise to the levying of a tax known as slaughter tax or rabbinical tax.
20. In France, as in many other European countries, the ritual slaughter required by Jews and Muslims for religious reasons comes into conflict with the principle that an animal to be slaughtered, after being restrained, must first be stunned, that is plunged into a state of unconsciousness in which it is kept until death intervenes, in order to spare it any suffering. Ritual slaughter is nevertheless authorised under French law and by the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Animals for Slaughter and the European Directive of 22 December 1993 (see �Relevant law and practice� below).
�It is forbidden to perform ritual slaughter save in a slaughterhouse. Subject to the provisions of the fourth paragraph of this Article, ritual slaughter may be performed only by slaughterers authorised for the purpose by religious bodies which have been approved by the Minister of Agriculture, on a proposal from the Minister of the Interior. Slaughterers must be able to show documentary proof of such authorisation.
22. On 1 July 1982 the approval necessary for power to authorise slaughterers was granted to the Joint Rabbinical Committee alone. The Joint Rabbinical Committee is part of the Jewish Consistorial Association of Paris (�the ACIP�), which is an offshoot of the Central Consistory, the institution set up by Napoleon I by means of the Imperial Decree of 17 March 1808 to administer Jewish worship in France. Following the separation of the Churches and the State in 1905, the Jewish congregations of France, numbering some 700,000 faithful, formed themselves into Jewish liturgical associations (see �Relevant law and practice� below) under an umbrella organisation called the Union of Jewish Congregations of France, which kept the name Central Consistory.
25. The Joint Rabbinical Committee is composed of the Chief Rabbi of Paris, from the ACIP, whose registered office is in the rue Saint-Georges, Paris, the rabbi of the orthodox congregation of the rue Pav�e, the rabbi of the Jewish congregation of strict observance and the rabbi of the traditionalist congregation of the rue de Montevideo. It is empowered to issue the authorisations needed to obtain a card permitting access to the slaughterhouses. The rabbinical court, or Beth Din, which rules on questions of religious law (marriage, divorce and conversions), supervises observance of the dietary laws and appoints and monitors the kashrut slaughterers and inspectors employed by the Consistory.
26. Since section 2 of the 1905 Act provides that the Republic may not recognise, pay stipends to or subsidise any religious denomination (except in the three d�partements of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle, where the 1801 Concordat still applies), the income of all the liturgical associations in France, of whatever denomination, is derived from the contributions and gifts of their adherents. According to the Government, approximately half of the Central Consistory's resources comes from the slaughter tax, which is levied at the rate of about 8 French francs (FRF) per kilo of beef sold.
30. Originally, the applicant association came into being as a minority movement which split away from the Jewish Central Consistory of Paris. Its members are determined to practise their religion in the strictest orthodoxy. In particular, the applicant association wishes to perform ritual slaughter according to stricter rules than those followed by the slaughterers authorised by the Paris Central Consistory as regards examination of slaughtered animals for any signs of disease or anomalies.
31. The prescriptions concerning kosher meat, derived from Leviticus, were codified in a compendium called Shulchan Aruch (The Laid Table) written by Rabbi Yosef Caro (1488-1575), which lays down very strict rules. However, some later commentators accepted less constraining rules, particularly with regard to examination of the lungs of slaughtered animals. But a number of orthodox Jews, particularly those who belong to Sephardic congregations originally from North Africa, including the members of the applicant association, wish to eat meat from animals slaughtered according to the most stringent requirements of the Shulchan Aruch. This type of meat is referred to by the Yiddish word �glatt�, meaning �smooth�.
32. For meat to qualify as �glatt�, the slaughtered animal must not have any impurity, or in other words any trace of a previous illness, especially in the lungs. In particular, there must be no filamentary adhesions between the pleura and the lung. This requirement of purity mainly concerns adult sheep and cattle, which are more likely to have contracted disease at some point of their existence. But, according to the applicant association, the ritual slaughterers under the authority of the Beth Din, the rabbinical court of the ACIP, the only body to have been approved � on 1 July 1982 � by the Ministry of Agriculture, now no longer make a detailed examination of the lungs and are less exacting about purity and the presence of filaments so that, in the applicant association's submission, butchers selling meat certified as kosher by the Central Consistory are selling meat which its members consider impure and therefore unfit for consumption.
33. The applicant association submitted that it was therefore obliged, in order to be able to make �glatt� kosher meat available to its adherents, to slaughter illegally and to obtain supplies from Belgium.
34. The Government, for their part, produced a certificate from the Chief Rabbi of France to the effect that there were butcher's shops supervised by the Consistory where the members of the Cha'are Shalom association could obtain �glatt� meat. In addition, according to figures supplied by the Government, the applicant association, which has nine employees, including six ritual slaughterers, had a turnover of FRF 4,900,000 in 1993, despite refusal of authorisation to perform ritual slaughter, and more than FRF 3,800,000 of this sum came from slaughter tax. In 1994 the turnover was FRF 4,600,000, of which FRF 3,700,000 came from the slaughter tax, and in 1995 the income from the slaughter tax came to more than FRF 4,000,000. The tax levied by the applicant association for slaughter amounted to FRF 4 for each kilo of kosher meat sold.
35. Between 1984 and 1985, when it was registered only as a cultural (rather than liturgical) association, the applicant association certified as being �glatt� kosher the meat sold in the butcher's shops of its members. This meat was either imported from Belgium or came from animals slaughtered in France in accordance with its own religious prescriptions, and therefore without certification from the Paris Beth Din. Civil proceedings were brought against it by the ACIP, which alleged that it had given a misleading description of goods offered for sale, since it had fraudulently labelled the meat sold as kosher.
However, the ACIP's action was dismissed by the Paris Court of Appeal in a judgment of 1 October 1987, later upheld by the Court of Cassation, on the ground that the 1905 Act on the separation of the Churches and the State did not allow the courts to rule on the question whether a liturgical association like the applicant was empowered to guarantee that meat offered for sale was kosher; on the other hand, the Court of Appeal noted that it had not been contested that the applicant association had complied with the strict rules concerning ritual slaughter and inspection.
37. The applicant association appealed to the Paris Administrative Court, pleading an infringement of freedom of religion, guaranteed both by section 1 of the Act of 9 December 1905 on the separation of the Churches and the State and by Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Although Article 1 of the appellant's statute describes it as a liturgical association governed by the provisions of the Act of 9 December 1905, ... [the applicant association] has not established, as the evidence stands at present, that it subsidises or that it is an offshoot of an association which subsidises the continuation of and public participation in Jewish worship. The fact that it makes kosher meat available for sale in more than twenty retail butcher's and eighty outlets for the sale of deep-frozen food is not sufficient to give the association the character of a religious body which may be proposed by the Minister of the Interior for approval by the Minister of Agriculture ... The Minister of the Interior was thus able to take the impugned decision without committing any error as to the facts or the law or any manifest error of assessment, nor did he infringe the freedom of worship, since he did no more than verify the status of the appellant organisation in the interests of public policy and pursuant to the provisions referred to above.
... The documents in the file do not establish that the Jewish liturgical association Cha'are Shalom Ve Tsedek, which does not organise any worship or dispense any teaching, has on account of its activities the character of a 'religious body' for the purposes of Article 10 ... of the decree of 1 October 1980. Consequently, by refusing to propose it for approval by the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of the Interior did not commit any error of law and gave sufficient grounds for his decision.
40. Concurrently with its application of 11 February 1987 for approval as a religious body, the applicant association submitted on the same day to the prefect of the d�partement of Deux-S�vres an application on behalf of three ritual slaughterers who were members of the association, and were authorised by it, for specific individual authorisations to perform ritual slaughter in an establishment in that d�partement.
41. On 29 April 1987 the prefect refused this application on the grounds that Article 10 � 3 of Decree no. 80-791 of 1 October 1980 empowered prefects to authorise individual slaughterers only where no religious body had been approved for the religion in question and that it was clear that the Joint Rabbinical Ritual Slaughter Committee had been given the approval concerned.
�All animals must be restrained before slaughter. In the case of ritual slaughter this must be done before the throat is slit.
�It is forbidden to perform ritual slaughter save in a slaughterhouse (Decree no. 81-606, 18 May 1989, Article 1). Subject to the provisions of the fourth paragraph of this Article, ritual slaughter may be performed only by slaughterers authorised for the purpose by religious bodies which have been approved by the Minister of Agriculture, on a proposal from the Minister of the Interior. Slaughterers must be able to show documentary proof of such authorisation.
�1. This Convention shall apply to the movement, lairaging, restraint, stunning and slaughter of domestic solipeds, ruminants, pigs, rabbits and poultry.
�1. Each Contracting Party shall make certain of the skill of persons who are professionally engaged in the restraint, stunning and slaughter of animals.
54. Under the terms of Article 37 � 1 (a) of the Convention, the Court may decide, at any time in the proceedings, to strike a case out of its list where the circumstances lead to the conclusion that the applicant does not intend to pursue his application.
55. In the present case, by a letter of 27 October 1999, the president of the applicant association, Rabbi David Bitton, told the Court that he wished purely and simply to withdraw the application. However, the lawyer of the applicant association contested the validity of this withdrawal, arguing, with supporting documentary evidence, that Mr Bitton had resigned from the office of president of the association on 26 February 1999 and that a new president had been elected by the governing body as far back as 2 March, this election being confirmed by an extraordinary general meeting on 10 March 1999 (see paragraphs 7 to 11 above).
57. In the absence of an express request by the Government for it to strike the case out of its list, the Court does not consider it necessary to examine of its own motion the question whether, as a matter of domestic law, the new president elected in March 1999 may validly act on behalf of the applicant association, since in the light of the documentary evidence produced by the association's lawyer the Court considers that it has been established that the applicant association intends to pursue its application. There is therefore no reason to strike the case out of the list.
58. The applicant association, whose arguments were endorsed by the Commission, submitted that by refusing it the approval necessary for it to authorise its own ritual slaughterers to perform ritual slaughter, in accordance with the religious prescriptions of its members, and by granting such approval to the ACIP alone, the French authorities had infringed in a discriminatory way its right to manifest its religion through observance of the rites of the Jewish religion. It relied on Article 9 of the Convention, taken alone and in conjunction with Article 14.
60. In the submission of the applicant association, the conditions for ritual slaughter, as performed at present by the ritual slaughterers authorised by the ACIP, to which the French government granted in 1982 the exclusive privilege of carrying out Jewish ritual slaughter, no longer satisfied the very strict requirements of the Jewish religion, as set forth in the Book of Leviticus and codified in the Shulchan Aruch. Since the ritual slaughterers of the ACIP no longer carried out a thorough inspection of the lungs of slaughtered oxen or sheep, the meat from animals slaughtered in those conditions could not be regarded in the eyes of the ultra-orthodox, or in any event of the Jews who belonged to the association, as perfectly pure, or �glatt�, from the religious point of view. However, what the Jews who belonged to the applicant association were asserting was the right not to consume meat if they could not be certain � because it was not from animals slaughtered and, above all, examined by their own ritual slaughterers � that it was perfectly pure, or �glatt�. In the applicant association's submission, there had accordingly been a clear interference with its right to manifest its religion through observance of the religious rite of ritual slaughter.
61. The applicant association submitted that the refusal to approve it could not be justified by any of the legitimate aims set out in Article 9 � 2 of the Convention and that it was disproportionate and discriminatory for the purposes of Article 14. It emphasised that it was not contested that the ritual slaughterers it employed were just as scrupulous as those of the ACIP in complying with the hygiene regulations in force in slaughterhouses and that the Government could not therefore seriously maintain that the refusal to approve the association pursued the legitimate aim of �protection of public health�.
62. The applicant association further submitted that it was indeed a �religious body� for the purposes of the 1980 decree regulating ritual slaughter, just like the ACIP, since both were liturgical associations within the meaning of the 1905 Act on the separation of the Churches and the State. The only difference lay in the relative size of these two liturgical associations, since the ACIP numbered among its adherents the majority of the Jews from the various branches of Judaism in France, with an annual budget of approximately 140,000,000 French francs (FRF) at its disposal, whereas the applicant association had only about 40,000 members, all ultra-orthodox, and had a budget of approximately FRF 4-5,000,000. While it might appear legitimate for a government to seek to establish especially close relations with the most representative trade unions, political parties or even religious associations, it nevertheless remained true, above all in a secular State like France, that the authorities had a duty to respect the rights of minorities. The applicant association emphasised in that connection that the French authorities had been very open-handed in granting approvals for ritual slaughter by Muslims, first to the Paris Central Mosque, and later to the mosques of Lyons and Evry, without the number of such approvals endangering public order or public health in any way whatsoever.
63. Lastly, the applicant association submitted that the fact that, in order to be able to pay its ritual slaughterers, it levied a slaughter tax of about FRF 4 per kilo of meat certified as being �glatt� kosher in the butcher's shops which claimed allegiance to it had no bearing on the strictly religious problem of the ritual slaughter in respect of which it had sought approval. It further observed that the ACIP also levied a slaughter tax, of about FRF 8 per kilo of meat sold, and that the income from that tax represented about half of the ACIP's resources.
65. Yet that was not the position in the present case, in the Government's submission, because it was quite plain from the documents in the file that certain butcher's shops sold meat certified �glatt� from slaughterhouses controlled by the ACIP, that the shops of the applicant association, which obtained part of their supplies in Belgium, also sold such meat and that there would be nothing to prevent the applicant association from reaching an agreement with the ACIP in order to have animals slaughtered by its own religious slaughterers, and according to the methods it defined, under the cover of the approval granted to the ACIP. In that connection the Government referred to the agreements reached between the ACIP and other very orthodox congregations such as the Lubavitch movement or the congregation of the rue Pav�e.
66. Admittedly, the applicant association denied that meat from the ACIP slaughterhouses was truly �glatt�, criticising the inadequacy of the inspection of the lungs of slaughtered animals by ACIP slaughterers, but the Government noted that in doing so the applicant association was challenging the findings of the legitimate and independent religious authorities who personified the religion it professed. The Government emphasised that it was not for the French authorities, bound as they were to respect the principle of secularism, to interfere in a controversy over dogma, but observed that it could not be contested that the Chief Rabbi of France, whose opinion on the matter was based on the rulings of the Beth Din (the rabbinical court), was qualified to say what was or was not compatible with Jewish observance.
67. In the Government's submission, there had been, in the final analysis, no interference with the right to freedom of religion, since in the present case the only impact of the refusal to approve the applicant association lay in the fact that it was impossible for Jews, given meat of equal quality, to choose meat from animals slaughtered by the applicant association, which differed from the meat offered for sale by the ACIP only in its price, since the slaughter tax levied by the applicant association was lower by half than the tax levied by the ACIP. In the Government's view, this freedom of choice was an economic, not religious freedom. That was evidenced by the fact that, according to the ACIP, the applicant association had at one time tried to obtain a kind of delegated authority from the ACIP allowing it to perform ritual slaughter itself, under cover of the approval granted to the ACIP, but that approach had come to nothing for lack of agreement on the financial terms of the contract.
69. With regard to the reasons which had prompted the French authorities to refuse the approval sought by the applicant association, the Government mentioned two factors, which came within the margin of appreciation the Convention left to Contracting States. In the first place, the Minister of the Interior had taken the view that the applicant association's activity was essentially commercial, and only religious in an accessory way, since it mainly sought to supply meat from animals slaughtered by its ritual slaughterers which was certified �glatt�, and that it could therefore not be considered a �religious body� within the meaning of the 1980 decree.
72. The Court considers, like the Commission, that an ecclesiastical or religious body may, as such, exercise on behalf of its adherents the rights guaranteed by Article 9 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, the Canea Catholic Church v. Greece judgment of 16 December 1997, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-VIII, p. 2856, � 31). In the present case, a community of believers � of whatever religion � must, under French law, be constituted in the form of a liturgical association, as is the applicant association.
73. The Court next reiterates that Article 9 lists a number of forms which manifestation of one's religion or belief may take, namely worship, teaching, practice and observance (see the Kala� v. Turkey judgment of 1 July 1997, Reports 1997-IV, p. 1209, � 27). It is not contested that ritual slaughter, as indeed its name indicates, constitutes a rite or �rite� (the word in the French text of the Convention corresponding to �observance� in the English), whose purpose is to provide Jews with meat from animals slaughtered in accordance with religious prescriptions, which is an essential aspect of practice of the Jewish religion. The applicant association employs ritual slaughterers and kashrut inspectors who slaughter animals in accordance with its prescriptions on the question, and it is likewise the applicant association which, by certifying as �glatt� kosher the meat sold in its members' butcher's shops, exercises religious supervision of ritual slaughter.
79. The Court notes that the method of slaughter employed by the ritual slaughterers of the applicant association is exactly the same as that employed by the ACIP's ritual slaughterers, and that the only difference lies in the thoroughness of the examination of the slaughtered animal's lungs after death. It is essential for the applicant association to be able to certify meat not only as kosher but also as �glatt� in order to comply with its interpretation of the dietary laws, whereas the great majority of practising Jews accept the kosher certification made under the aegis of the ACIP.
81. But that is not the case. It is not contested that the applicant association can easily obtain supplies of �glatt� meat in Belgium. Furthermore, it is apparent from the written depositions and bailiffs' official reports produced by the interveners that a number of butcher's shops operating under the control of the ACIP make meat certified �glatt� by the Beth Din available to Jews.
82. It emerges from the case file as a whole, and from the oral submissions at the hearing, that Jews who belong to the applicant association can thus obtain �glatt� meat. In particular, the Government referred, without being contradicted on this point, to negotiations between the applicant association and the ACIP with a view to reaching an agreement whereby the applicant association could perform ritual slaughter itself under cover of the approval granted to the ACIP, an agreement which was not reached, for financial reasons (see paragraph 67 above). Admittedly, the applicant association argued that it did not trust the ritual slaughterers authorised by the ACIP as regards the thoroughness of the examination of the lungs of slaughtered animals after death. But the Court takes the view that the right to freedom of religion guaranteed by Article 9 of the Convention cannot extend to the right to take part in person in the performance of ritual slaughter and the subsequent certification process, given that, as pointed out above, the applicant association and its members are not in practice deprived of the possibility of obtaining and eating meat considered by them to be more compatible with religious prescriptions.
83. Since it has not been established that Jews belonging to the applicant association cannot obtain �glatt� meat, or that the applicant association could not supply them with it by reaching an agreement with the ACIP, in order to be able to engage in ritual slaughter under cover of the approval granted to the ACIP, the Court considers that the refusal of approval complained of did not constitute an interference with the applicant association's right to the freedom to manifest its religion.
84. That finding absolves the Court from the task of ruling on the compatibility of the restriction challenged by the applicant association with the requirements laid down in the second paragraph of Article 9 of the Convention. However, even supposing that this restriction could be considered an interference with the right to freedom to manifest one's religion, the Court observes that the measure complained of, which is prescribed by law, pursues a legitimate aim, namely protection of public health and public order, in so far as organisation by the State of the exercise of worship is conducive to religious harmony and tolerance. Furthermore, regard being had to the margin of appreciation left to Contracting States (see the Manoussakis and Others v. Greece judgment of 26 September 1996, Reports 1996‑IV, p. 1364, � 44), particularly with regard to establishment of the delicate relations between the Churches and the State, it cannot be considered excessive or disproportionate. In other words, it is compatible with Article 9 � 2 of the Convention.
86. As regards the applicant association's allegation that it suffered discriminatory treatment on account of the fact that approval was granted to the ACIP alone, the Court reiterates that, according to the established case-law of the Convention institutions, Article 14 only complements the other substantive provisions of the Convention and the Protocols. It has no independent existence since it has effect solely in relation to �the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms� safeguarded by those provisions. Although the application of Article 14 does not presuppose a breach of those provisions � and to that extent it is autonomous � there can be no room for its application unless the facts at issue fall within the ambit of one or more of the latter.
87. The Court notes that the facts of the present case fall within the ambit of Article 9 of the Convention (see paragraph 74 above) and that therefore Article 14 is applicable. However, in the light of its findings in paragraph 83 above concerning the limited effect of the measure complained of, findings which led the Court to conclude that there had been no interference with the applicant association's freedom to manifest its religion, the Court considers that the difference of treatment which resulted from the measure was limited in scope. It further observes that, for the reasons set out in paragraph 84, in so far as there was a difference of treatment, it pursued a legitimate aim, and that there was �a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realised� (see, among other authorities, the Marckx v. Belgium judgment of 13 June 1979, Series A no. 31, p. 16, � 33). Such difference of treatment as there was therefore had an objective and reasonable justification within the meaning of the Court's consistent case-law.
88. There has accordingly been no violation of Article 9 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 14.
2.� Holds by ten votes to seven that there has been no violation of Article 9 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 14.
In accordance with Article 45 � 2 of the Convention and Rule 74 � 2 of the Rules of Court, the joint dissenting opinion of Sir Nicolas Bratza, M. Fischbach, Mrs Thomassen, Mrs Tsatsa-Nikolovska, Mr Panţ�ru, Mr Levits and Mr Traja is annexed to this judgment.
The mere fact that approval has already been granted to one religious body does not absolve the State authorities from the obligation to give careful consideration to any later application made by other religious bodies professing the same religion. In the present case, the applicant association's application was prompted by the fact that, in its submission, the ACIP's ritual slaughterers no longer made a sufficiently thorough examination of the lungs of slaughtered animals, so that meat certified as kosher by the ACIP could not be considered �glatt�. But the Jews who belong to the applicant association consider that meat which is not �glatt� is impure and therefore not compatible with Jewish dietary laws. There is therefore disagreement on that point between the ACIP and the applicant association.
We also consider that the fact that the applicant association is able to import �glatt� meat from Belgium does not justify in this case the conclusion that there was no interference with the right to the freedom to practise one's religion through performance of the rite of ritual slaughter; the same applies to the fact that Jews are able to obtain supplies of �glatt� meat, if necessary, from the few butcher's shops run by the ACIP which sell it under the aegis of the Beth Din.
Article 10 of the 1980 decree expressly provides that an approved religious body may authorise ritual slaughterers to perform ritual slaughter and that the necessary approval is to be given by the Minister of Agriculture on a proposal by the Minister of the Interior. By denying the applicant association the status of a �religious body� and by rejecting its application for approved status on that account, the French authorities therefore restricted its freedom to manifest its religion.
In our view, the possibility of obtaining �glatt� meat by other means is irrelevant for the purpose of assessing the scope of an act or omission on the part of the State aimed, as in the present case, at restricting exercise of the right to freedom of religion (see, mutatis mutandis, the Observer and Guardian v. the United Kingdom judgment of 26 November 1991, Series A no. 216, pp. 34-35, � 69). We cannot therefore follow the majority's finding that there was no violation of Article 9 taken alone because there had been no interference.
In that connection, we consider that the reasoning of the majority, as set out in paragraph 87, is inadequate. In our opinion, in order to find that there had been no violation of Article 9 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 14, the majority should not have confined their reasons to the assertion that the interference was of �limited effect� and that the difference of treatment was �limited in scope�. Where freedom of religion is concerned, it is not for the European Court of Human Rights to substitute its assessment of the scope or seriousness of an interference for that of the persons or groups concerned, because the essential object of Article 9 of the Convention is to protect individuals' most private convictions.
For our part, we consider it indispensable to examine the question whether, by granting the approval in issue to the ACIP while refusing it to the applicant association in 1987, the State authorities secured to the applicant association, without discrimination, in accordance with Article 14 of the Convention, enjoyment of the right to freedom of religion it was afforded under Article 9. In the present case we consider that there has been a violation of Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 9, for the following reasons.
In the first place, we observe that for the purposes of Article 14 the notion of discrimination ordinarily includes cases where States treat persons or groups in analogous situations differently without providing an objective and reasonable justification. According to the case-law of the Convention institutions, a difference of treatment is discriminatory for the purposes of Article 14 if it �has no objective and reasonable justification�, that is if it does not pursue a �legitimate aim� or if there is not a �reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realised�. The Court reaffirmed this recently in Thlimmenos v. Greece ([GC], no. 34369/97, ECHR 2000-IV).
The Court should first have considered therefore whether the applicant association was in an analogous situation to that of the ACIP. In that connection, we observe that it is not contested that the legal status of the applicant association is that of a liturgical association, within the meaning of the 1905 Act on the separation of the Churches and the State, just like the ACIP. Moreover, Article 10 of the decree of 1 October 1980 gives no definition whatsoever of the term �religious body� and lays down no criterion, such as representativeness within the religion concerned, whereby the point can be assessed. Nor has it been contested that the applicant association has two synagogues where acts of worship are regularly celebrated and training establishments for rabbis or that it carries out, in practice, religious supervision over a number of butcher's shops and sales outlets for �glatt� kosher meat.
The fact that this movement is a minority within the Jewish community as a whole is not in itself sufficient to deprive it of the character of a religious body. We therefore consider that in the light of its statute and activities there is at first sight no reason to doubt that the applicant association is a �religious body�, just like the ACIP. We further note that, as regards the practice of ritual slaughter, it is not contested either that the ACIP slaughterers and those of the applicant association use exactly the same method of slaughter by throat-slitting, the only difference residing in the scope of the examination of the lungs of the slaughtered animals after death. Here again, therefore, the applicant association is in an analogous situation to that of the ACIP.
The Government submitted that the difference in treatment between the ACIP and the applicant association was justified by the fact that the applicant association was actually engaged in a purely commercial activity, namely the slaughter, certification and sale of �glatt� kosher meat, as evidenced by the fact that more than half of its income came from levying a slaughter tax. The Government argued on that basis that the applicant association was not engaged in truly religious activity comparable to that of the ACIP. However, we would observe that the ACIP likewise levies a rabbinical tax on slaughter and that it can be seen from the accounts submitted by the third-party interveners that more than half of the ACIP's income also comes from this same tax. That being so, we fail to see in what way the applicant association's activity is more �commercial� than the activity carried on by the ACIP in this area.
With regard to the legitimate aims capable of justifying the difference in treatment, the Government relied on the need to protect public health. However, there is nothing to suggest that the ritual slaughterers employed by the applicant association do not comply just as well as those of the ACIP with the rules of hygiene imposed by the regulations governing slaughterhouses, a point which was also acknowledged by the domestic courts (see paragraph 35 of the judgment).
Lastly, the Government referred to the low level of support for the applicant association, which has only about 40,000 adherents, all ultra-orthodox Jews, out of 700,000 Jews living in France. Its representativeness, in their submission, could not be compared with that of the ACIP, which represented nearly all the Jews in France. The refusal to approve the applicant association had therefore been necessary, they argued, for the protection of public order, with a view to avoiding the proliferation of approved bodies which did not provide the same safeguards as the ACIP.
We certainly do not disregard the interest the authorities may have in dealing with the most representative organisations of a specific community. The fact that the State wishes to avoid dealing with an excessive number of negotiating partners so as not to dissipate its efforts and in order to reach concrete results more easily, whether in its relations with trade unions, political parties or religious denominations, is not illegitimate in itself, or disproportionate (see, mutatis mutandis, the Swedish Engine Drivers' Union v. Sweden judgment of 6 February 1976, Series A no. 20, p. 17, � 46).
In the present case, however, the dispute submitted to the French authorities did not concern the applicant association's representativeness within the Jewish community and the applicant association has by no means challenged the role and function of the ACIP, the Central Consistory or other bodies representing the interests of the Jewish communities in France as the State's preferred interlocutors. For the applicant association, it was solely a matter of obtaining approval to practise ritual slaughter, on which subject it disagrees with the ACIP.
We consider that the organisation of ritual slaughter is only one aspect of the relations between the various religious bodies and the State and do not see how granting the approval in question could have threatened to undermine public order. With regard to the Muslim communities living in France, which also practise ritual slaughter but are less well structured than the Jewish communities, it should be noted that the applicant association asserted, without being contradicted on this point by the Government, that approval had been granted fairly liberally by the authorities to a number of different bodies, notably the mosques of Paris, Evry and Lyons, without it even being alleged that the number of approved bodies was such as to threaten public order or health.
In concluding, in paragraph 87 of the judgment, that there was in the present case a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realised, the majority of the Court refer to paragraph 84 and to the Manoussakis and Others v. Greece judgment (judgment of 26 September 1996, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-IV), stressing the margin of appreciation left to States, �particularly with regard to establishment of the delicate relations between the Churches and the State�.
While we accept that States enjoy a margin of appreciation in this area, we observe that in the same judgment the Court went on to emphasise that in delimiting the extent of the margin of appreciation concerned it had to have regard to what was at stake, namely the need to secure true religious pluralism, which is an inherent feature of the notion of a democratic society (loc. cit., p. 1364, � 44).
In the light of the foregoing considerations, we consider that the difference in treatment between the applicant association and the ACIP � one of which received the approval that the other was denied � had no objective and reasonable justification and was disproportionate. There has therefore been a violation of Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 9.
. Note by the Registry. The report is obtainable from the Registry.
. In the version applicable at the material time.

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