Law, Religion, Constitution: Freedom of Religion, Equal Treatment, and the Law

Law, Religion, Constitution: Freedom of Religion, Equal Treatment, and the Law
W. Cole Durham, Jr., Silvio Ferrari, Cristiana Cianitto, and Donlu Thayer, eds.
Routledge 2013

What is the place assigned to religion in the constitutions of contemporary States? What role is religion expected to perform in the fields that are the object of constitutional regulation? Is separation of religion and politics a necessary precondition for democracy and the rule of law? These questions are addressed in this book through an analysis of the constitutional texts that are in force in different parts of the world.

Constitutions are at the centre of almost all contemporary legal systems and provide the principles and values that inspire the action of the national law-makers. After a discussion of some topics that are central to the constitutional regulation of religion, the book considers a number of national systems covering countries with a variety of religious and cultural backgrounds. The final section of the book is devoted to the discussion of the constitutional regulation of some particularly controversial issues, such as religious education, the relation between freedom of speech and freedom of religion, abortion, and freedom of conscience.

Contents:
Preface, W. Cole Durham Jr

Part I Religion and Constitution

Religion and the world’s constitutions, W. Cole Durham Jr;
God in constitutions and godless constitutions, Iván C. Ibán;
Church and state relations in the constitutions, Gerhard Robbers;
Constitutional reception of international law provisions on religious freedom, Jorge Precht Pizarro;
Religion and the sources of law: Sharî’ah in constitutions, Gianluca P. Parolin;
Constitutional protections and limits to religious freedom, Johan D. van der Vyver.

Part II National Experiences and Cases:
Religion and religions in the Latin American constitutional framework, Carmen Asiaín Pereira;
The constitutional principle of separation between church and state in Mexico, Pauline Capdevielle;
Constitutional protection of religious and cultural minorities in sub-Saharan Africa, Kofi Quashigah;
Religious freedom in the constitutions of the Maghreb, Nassima Ferchiche;
Religious institutions and fundamental rights: applicability, interaction and limitations in South Africa, Helena van Coller;
Religion and the basic legislation in Israel, Natan Lerner;
Religion and equal treatment in the Nepalese constitution, Kanak Bikram Thapa;
Constitutional, legislative and regulatory change regarding religion in China, Liu Peng, Brett G. Scharffs and Carl Hollan;
The constitutionalization of freedom of religion in the European Union. What changes are the Charter of Fundamental Rights expected to bring about?, Emma Svensson;
The right to religious liberty in English law, Julian Rivers;
Religious equality in the Spanish constitutional system, Santiago Cañamares Arribas.

Part III Open Issues:
Freedom of religion and freedom of speech in the French case law. A constitutional dilemma, Alain Garay;
Freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and education – a Nordic example, Pamela Slotte;
Religion and education in the Council of Europe: toward a ‘soft’ constitutionalization of a model of religious teaching?, Rafael Palomino Lozano;
Comparing law’s social role in American and Western-European constitutional conflicts over abortion, Ofrit Liviatan;
Secular human rights, and religious pluralism: the British debate, Zachary R. Calo;

Index.

About the Editors:
Silvio Ferrari is Professor of Law and Religion at the University of Milan. Visiting professor at the University of California (Berkeley, 1994 and 2001), the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies (London, 1998-99) and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris, Sorbonne, 2004). His main fields of interest are law and religion in Europe, comparative law of religions (particularly Jewish law, Canon law and Islamic law) and the Vatican policy in the Middle East. He is honorary president of ICLARS (International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies) and a member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. He is also one of the editors-in-chief of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion and member of the Editorial Board of the Ecclesiastical Law Journal (Cambridge Univ. Press).

W. Cole Durham Jr., is Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, a position he has held since the Center was officially organized on January 1, 2000. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was a Note Editor of the Harvard Law Review and Managing Editor of the Harvard International Law Journal, Professor Durham has been heavily involved in comparative law scholarship, with a special emphasis on comparative constitutional law. He is currently the President of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS) and a Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. He served from 1997-2013 as a member of the OSCE/ODIHR’s Advisory Council on Freedom of Religion or Belief. He is a Vice President of the International Academy for Freedom of Religion and Belief and has served as a board member of church-state centers at DePaul and Baylor Universities, of the International Religious Liberty Association, and of the International Advisory Board of the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

Cristiana Cianitto is a lecturer at the University di Milan. She also teaches Anglican Canon Law in the Faculty of Theology in Lugano Switzerland. Her main fields of study are religiously motivated hate speech and hate crimes; Church and State relationships in the UK with a particular attention to the Anglican canon law and the British legal system in relation to religious issues. She is a member of the editorial board of Quaderni di Diritto e Politica Ecclesiastica and a Casenote Editor for the Oxford Journal for Law and Religion. She is a member of and the secretariat of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS).

Donlu Thayer is the Managing Editor of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University, with responsibility for overseeing print and electronic publications, including creating the Center’s newsletters, maintaining the website as well as producing the Headline News Digest sent daily to subscribers worldwide. Thayer is a Casenote Editor for the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. Before joining the Center in 2009, Thayer had a long career as a teacher, writer, and editor. She worked as an editor for BYU Press and was for many years volume editor for the New World Archaeological Foundation before receiving her J.D. from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University.

Reviews:
‘This book admirably delivers a very clear picture of our past and present struggle with constitutional protection of religious diversity on a national and trans-national scale. It illustrates the current theoretical debate on state neutrality, separation of church and state, religious liberty, equality and the rights of faith communities. With a rich panoply of authors, cases, topics and viewpoints, the book identifies the challenge of religious diversity to constitutional law in the post-secular age.’ — Marco Ventura, KU Leuven University, Belgium