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The Myth of the Necessity Test

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The Right to Wear Religious Symbols

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Abstract

One test that has been advanced as an analysis of the basis of the ECtHR’s decisions is the so-called necessity test, aka the Arrowsmith test: an action is a manifestation of a belief if and only if the belief necessitates, that is makes obligatory, the action. We argue in detail that the necessity test has never been a basis for any decision of the ECtHR, at least with respect to determining manifestation. Therefore, when it comes to manifestation, the necessity test is a myth.

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Notes

  1. Arrowsmith v UK (1981) 3 EHRR 218 (Commission Decision). (App no. 7050/75, 12 October 1978.)

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  2. Arrowsmith 228 [71].

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  3. Arrowsmith 229 [71].

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  4. For example, Jakóbski v Poland [2010] ECHR 1974, (2012) 55 EHRR 8, 239 [45]. (App no 18429/06, 7 December 2010.)

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  5. Sahin v Turkey [GC] [2005] ECHR 819, App no. 44774/98 (ECtHR, 10 November 2005) [6]. (This is not in the report in (2007) 44 EHRR 5.)

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  6. Arrowsmith, Opsahl’s partly dissenting opinion, 235–6 [O2]–[3], italics original.

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  7. For example, Arden LJ (in R (Williamson) v Secretary of State for Education and Employment [2002] EWCA Civ 1926, [2003] QB1300, 1373 [266]) claims, ‘[t]he act must be one which his beliefs require him to carry out. … The Arrowsmith test draws a distinction between acts which the beliefs require to be performed and are integral to those beliefs and acts which are merely inspired by the beliefs. It is not enough to make the acts manifestations of religious beliefs that they are motivated or influenced by the actor’s religious beliefs.’

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  8. The domestic situation is more complicated, since judgments surrounding discrimination are often framed in terms of mandatory practices. For reasons of space, we do not discuss these cases in what follows.

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  9. C. Evans (2001) Freedom of Religion under the European Convention on Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 116–8.

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  10. Khan v UK (1986) 48 DR 253. (App no 11579/85, 7 July 1986.)

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  11. Evans, Freedom of Religion, p. 116.

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  12. Khan 255.

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  13. X v Austria (1981) 26 DR 89. (App no 8652/79, 15 October 1981.)

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  14. Evans, Freedom of Religion, p. 116.

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  15. X v Austria 89.

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  16. The decision states: ‘it has [not] been shown that the dissolution of the association in which the sect wanted to organise itself did as such interfere with the manifestation of [the applicant’s] religion.’

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  17. This is, in fact, quite consistent with Evans’s own analysis of this case. Note also that on p. 180 Evans comes closer to seeing the necessity test, as we do, as one for interference, not for manifestation in general or for practice in particular.

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  18. X v UK (1975) 1 DR 41. (App no 5442/72, 20 December 1974.)

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  19. X v UK 42.

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  20. D v France (1983) 35 DR 199. (App no 10180/82, 6 December 1983.)

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  21. D v France 202.

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  22. D v France 202.

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  23. Ahmad [X] v UK (1982) 4 EHRR 126 (Commission Decision). (App no 8160/78, 1 March 1981.)

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  24. Evans, Freedom of Religion, p. 117.

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  25. Ahmad 132.

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  26. Ahmad 133.

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  27. ‘The Commission concludes that there has been no interference with the applicant’s freedom of religion under Article 9(1) of the Convention’ (Ahmad 137). Note that the decision concerns interference, not simply manifestation.

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  28. Ahmad 134.

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  29. Ahmad 134.

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  30. Cha’are Shalom Ve Tsedek v. France [2000] ECHR 351, (2000) 9 BHRC 27. (App no 27417/95, 27 June 2000.)

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  31. Cha’are Shalom Ve Tsedek [73], [75], [80].

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  32. L. Vickers (2008) Religious Freedom, Religious Discrimination and the Workplace (Portland, OR: Hart), p. 98.

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  33. Martínez-Torrón, J. (2001) ‘The European Court of Human Rights and Religion’ in R. O’Dair and A. Lewis (eds) Law and Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 199, 201.

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  34. Cumper, P. (2001) ‘The Public Manifestation of Religion or Belief: Challenges for a Multi-Faith Society in the Twenty-First Century’ in O’Dair and Lewis, Law and Religion, p. 321.

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  35. Evans, Freedom of Religion, p. 50.

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  36. Evans, Freedom of Religion, p. 202.

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  37. EHRC (2011) ‘Submission to the European Court of Human Rights on Eweida and Chaplin’, http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/legal/ehrc_submission_to_ecthr_sep_2011.pdf, date accessed 4 May 2013, [13], [15]. Indeed, as recently as February 2013, the EHRC has claimed, ‘[u]ntil recently, the European Court of Human Rights and our domestic courts tended to take the view that a practice was protected under Article 9 only if it was _ by the particular religion or belief’

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  38. EHRC (2013) ‘Religion or belief in the workplace: an explanation of recent European Court of Human Rights judgments’, http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/RoB/religion_or_belief_in_the_workplace_an_explanation_of_recent_judgments.doc, date accessed 20 June 2013, pp. 4–5.

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  39. Ahmad 134.

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  40. D v France 202.

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  41. Valsamis v Greece (1997) 24 EHRR 294. (App no 21787/93, 18 December 1996.)

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  42. Efstratiou v Greece, App no 24095/94 (ECtHR, 18 December 1996, unreported).

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  43. Valsamis 316 [31]; cf. Efstratiou [32].

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  44. A v UK [also sub nom X v UK and Ross v UK] (1984) 6 EHRR 558 (Commission Decision). (App no 10295/82, 14 October 1983.)

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  45. C v UK [also sub nom A v UK and Croft v UK] (1984) 6 EHRR 587 (Commission Decision). (App no 10358/83, 15 December 1983.)

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  46. A v UK 558. The exact same wording is to be found in C v UK 147.

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  47. Valsamis 321. Identical words, but for the change of names, is found in Efstratiou.

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  48. Evans, Freedom of Religion, p. 124.

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  49. Kjeldsen v Denmark (1979–80) 1 EHRR 711, 735. (App nos 5095/71, 5920/72, 5926/72, 7 December 1976.)

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  50. Valsamis 321.

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  51. Evans usefully compares the practice of the US Supreme Court in this regard: Freedom of Religion, p. 124.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool, UK

    Daniel J. Hill & Daniel Whistler

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  1. Daniel J. Hill
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  2. Daniel Whistler
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© 2013 Daniel J. Hill and Daniel Whistler

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Hill, D.J., Whistler, D. (2013). The Myth of the Necessity Test. In: The Right to Wear Religious Symbols. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137354174_3

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