Constitutional contestation of religion in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka‘s constitutional policy regarding religion affords a ‘foremost place‘ to Buddhism obligating the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana, whilst assuring the rights and freedoms of the other religions. By explicitly creating a special status for Buddhism, it has produced the category of “The Other“. This distinction is discriminatory in a pluralistic...
Each Conscience A Law Unto Itself? Religious Accommodation in the U.S. and Germany
This paper compares the US Supreme Court‘s and the German Constitutional Court‘s approaches to religious accommodation. The US Court does not usually require the state to accommodate people through religious exemptions. I argue that Scalia‘s critical view of accommodations followed from the political philosophy of Locke that was especially influential at the time of the...
Religious Freedom and Abuse
This research will deal with the notion of protected democracy with regard to extremist Islamic movements and their role as anti-systemic forces. This topic is still mostly overlooked from a juridical, or rather a constitutional, point of view. This essay will evaluate the main legislative, administrative and judiciary measures that banned Islamist movements in some...
Religious Identities and the Right to Religious Profession in Indian, Malaysian, and Singaporean Law
India, Malaysia and Singapore recognise constitutional rights to profess, practise and propagate religion. Little attention has been paid so far to the first of these compared to the other two. I explore the concept of profession and argue that the right to profession is logically prior to the other two, because the act of profession...
Social Impact Discrimination: the religious response to the liberal challenge
Religious communities in contemporary liberal democracies experience fundamental norm conflicts, but little is known on how they tackle them. How do religious decision- makers apply religious norms regarding gender and sexual orientation in an age of egalitarianism and liberalism? Bringing qualitative and experimental evidence from Israel and the U.S., this paper identifies a practice of...
Western Values and Liberty of Religion. A matter of dual loyalty?
A recent decision by the Italian Supreme Court (C. of Cassation, I, n. 24084/2017) has sparked a new strand of discussion on the relationship between liberty of religion, security, democracy, and cultural integration. The Court held an Indian national liable for criminal offence for carrying in his belt a Kirpan, the sacred cutter of Sikhism....