News

By Hilary White

ROME, February 23, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Council of Europe has declared that it is not within the scope of the European Court of Human Rights to force Italian schools and public offices to remove crucifixes.

This week, the Council of Europe voted to adopt a declaration that the Court had no right to rule on questions of the cultural and national traditions of member states.  This declaration “invites” the court to “to apply in a uniform and rigorous manner the criteria concerning admissibility and jurisdiction.”

This, however, does not automatically overturn the court’s November 2009 decision against Italy’s use of crucifixes in public offices and schools. The Italian government has launched a formal appeal against the ruling, which is expected to be heard in March this year.

The council vote follows a massive public uproar in Italy, after the court ordered the Italian government to remove crucifixes from public spaces. The ruling came in response to a single complaint made by a Finnish woman who lives in Italy and who said that, as an atheist, she wanted her children to be free of religious influences.

The court ruled unanimously that crucifixes in Italian public school classes are contrary to the rights of parents to “educate their children in line with their convictions” and to the children’s right to freedom of religion under article 2 of the 1st Protocol, and art. 9 of the Convention.

Members of the Italian national government made several declarations against the ruling, but in local regions, mayors and governors took direct action, instructing schools and public offices to install crucifixes where they had been absent, and ordering police to issue fines for non-compliance.

In early January, the Italian High Court issued a ruling asserting the supremacy of Italian law and custom over the orders of the European Court of Human Rights.

L'Osservatore Romano reports that the council met for two days in Interlaken, Switzerland to decide on reforms of the Court’s activities. Among the issues addressed was the Court’s public credibility and the concern for the large backlog of unresolved cases.

At that meeting, Lithuanian and Maltese representatives brought up  the issue of the Italian crucifix case. Carmelo Mifsu Bonnici, Justice Minister of Malta said the Court “is not sufficiently sensitive” to the “cultural characteristics” of the “national identities” of member states.

The Court was first established under the European Convention of Human Rights of 1950 to monitor respect of human rights by 47 member states of the Council of Europe, a body that is distinct from the European Parliament.

The Rights Court is not related to the EU’s Court of Justice, whose rulings are considered binding on EU member states. But since the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, it is understood that the EU will endorse the Convention of Human Rights,  bringing the two courts into closer union. This will make the Court of Justice bound by the judicial precedents of the Court of Human Rights and thus be subject to its human rights law.

British lawyer and anti-discrimination law expert Neil Addison has warned that the crucifix case should be a warning to Christians in Europe of the ways human rights laws are being used to quash public expressions of religious belief in the EU.

Given the intimate connections between the ECHR, the Lisbon Treaty and the European Convention on Human Rights, Addison said, the Lautsi ruling is “an extraordinarily wide decision which could be used, for example, to prevent state schools putting on nativity plays.”

He cited the examples of Greek and Cypriot schools where it is common to see icons displayed. If the Italian crucifix ruling stands, he said, “those icons will have to be removed and, arguably so will displays of Christianity from all public buildings throughout Europe.”