Brett G. Scharffs on the Evolution of His Thinking About Refah Partisi v. Turkey

In Refah Partisi (the Welfare Party) and Others v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights sided with the Turkish Constitutional Court, which had ordered the dissolution of the party based on its being a threat to secular constitutional order. Brett G. Scharffs (International Center for Law and Religion Studies) explains why and how his and his students’ opinions about the Refah Partisi case have changed over the years and why he no longer considers the Court’s decision to be an overreaction.

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The EUCJ Ruling in Katholische Schwangerschaftsberatung v. JB and Its Impact on Ecclesiastical Labor Law in Germany

Judith Hahn is Professor of Canon Law at the University of Bonn and McDonald Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University.

On 17 March 2026, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) issued a judgment regarding Catholic institutions in Germany and their employment relationships, in Katholische Schwangerschaftsberatung v. JB. The ruling established that a Catholic employer, in this case a pregnancy counseling office at Caritas, cannot terminate a contract of employment solely on the basis of the employee’s leaving the Catholic Church. The Court determined that such a dismissal constitutes unequal treatment, unless the employee’s church membership is a genuine, legitimate, and necessary requirement for the specific occupation. While acknowledging the right of churches to self-determination in employment matters, the CJEU determined the dismissal to be unlawful, as the employer did not generally require staff to be Catholic and had employed non-Catholics in similar roles.

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Judith Hahn

Judith Hahn is Professor of Canon Law and Vice Dean for Research and International Affairs at the Faculty of Catholic Theology, Bonn University (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn). Hahn has been a Visiting Scholar at Thomas More Law School, Australian Catholic University, the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, and a Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study of “Law as Culture” in Bonn. She has published on the theory and sociology of canon law and on the status of religious law in modern society. Her work in the area of law and religion also extends to a variety of topics that examine both legal aspects and theological problems of law and religion from a cultural and social studies perspective.

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