Universal Declaration on Human Rights: Article 18

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, I intended today to speak in the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, on palliative care but a rather happy slip of the cursor entered my name for this debate—fortunate, because the topic of the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is of the utmost importance and because I shall have the opportunity to speak on palliative care in the debate on the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, tomorrow. I declare interests relevant to this debate, both as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and on account of publishing and lecturing on this and other rights.

There is a great deal of confusion about Article 18 rights in the United Kingdom at present. This is not because the UK is a society in which there is flagrant violation of this right. We do not criminalise apostasy and we are, in the main, a tolerant society. However, confusion has arisen about the proper interpretation of the phrase “religion or belief” from a number of cases in the lower courts dealing, it must be said, mainly with employment issues. A central confusion is about the meaning to be given to the term “belief”. On the one hand, courts have held:

“A belief must be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information”,

and on the other, that any belief that is to be protected by this right should,

“attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance”.

Peter Edge and Lucy Vickers conclude in their recent Review of Equality and Human Rights Law Relating to Religion and Belief that the,

“broad definition of belief currently being applied by the courts is unclear, and some rulings appear inconsistent with others”.

Their views are widely shared. It is puzzling to find opposition to fox hunting classified by one tribunal as a religion or belief, but support for fox hunting not classified as a religion or belief. Things would be much clearer if the courts noted that Article 18, like Article 9 of the European convention, yokes religion and belief, suggesting that the kinds of belief that count must be life orienting rather than bearing on a single aspect of life—a Weltanschauung rather than a specific political or ethical position. More occasional or disjointed beliefs and their expression are properly protected by rights to freedom of expression. I suggest that this troubling confusion about Article 18 rights in the UK can be settled only by further legislation or—but it is probably too slow—by the accumulation of further court decisions that do not simply point in contradictory directions.