Liberal and Post-liberal Religious Freedom in Church Employment: An Appraisal of the Strasbourg’s Case Law

Matteo Corsalini is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Siena (Italy), Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences. This post is based on a presentation given at the ICLRS 32nd Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 6 October 2025.

In its first, 1993 decision on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), Kokkinakis v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) famously held that FoRB is “one of the most vital elements that go to make up the identity of believers and their conception of life” (para. 31). The Court further clarified that, beyond protecting traditionally religious concerns, FoRB is also “a precious asset for atheists, agnostics, skeptics and the unconcerned” and thus overall a “matter of individual conscience” (para. 31). By employing such phrasing, the ECtHR appeared to ground the rationale for FoRB protection in wider concerns of individual self-determination—including through adherence to multiple, and at times unconventional, religions, or even to none. In this sense the ECtHR may be said to have developed a “generally liberal approach”[1] to FoRB—an orientation that the Court has repeatedly exhibited since Kokkinakis. Building on this precedent, the Court has in fact underscored the primacy of individual self-expression in religious matters, clarifying that FoRB protection should also cover religiously inspired practices that are not explicitly mandated by religious authorities and official dogma (see Eweida & Others v. UK, para. 81). In other words, what matters for the protection of idiosyncratic religious practices—the Court has clarified—is assessing whether they attain a certain level of “cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance” for the individual believer only (see Bayatyan v. Armenia, para. 110).

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Cisnormativity and Christiannormativity at the Strasbourg Court: Reflections on Gender and Religion

Eugenia Relaño Pastor is Assistant Professor in the School of Law, Complutense University, Madrid (Spain), and Cooperation Partner in the Department of Law and Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Germany). [1]

Europe is suffused with Christianity, or at least memories of its past influence.

—Andrew Higgins[2]

Those searching to have their gender legally recognized by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or Strasbourg Court) and members of religious minorities who pursue equal rights and privileges enjoyed by dominant religious groups may not apparently share much in common. However, the following post sheds light on the similarities in the demands coming from gender and religious minorities. An initial examination unveils three common features shared by gender and religious minorities in searching for effective freedom: (1) the bias embedded in heteronormative laws and traditional church-state relations, (2) the experience of intersectional forms of discrimination, and (3) a self-determination approach to gender and religion.

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Interview: András Sajó on Religious Freedom, Constitutionalism, and Democracy in the Jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court

András Sajó is a former judge at the European Court of Human Rights. He is currently a University Professor at Central European University. He previously was a visiting professor and guest lecturer at University of Toronto, Columbia University, University of Chicago Law School, NYU School of Law, Cardozo School of Law (New York), Harvard Law School, Bocconi University (Milano), and other institutions. Professor Sajó received the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Book Award (1989) and The Blackstone Lecture at Oxford University (1993). He holds Honorary Doctorates from the European University Institute (Florence) and Ilia State University (Tbilisi). Professor Sajó has been involved in legal drafting throughout Eastern Europe. In addition, he participated and/or advised in drafting the Ukrainian, Georgian, and South African constitutions.

Professor Sajó has published extensively on constitutionalism, the rule of law, theory of democracy, the secular state, human rights, and media regulation. His recent publications include Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism (2022, co-edited with Renáta Uitz and Stephen Holmes), Ruling by Cheating: Governance in Illiberal Democracy (2021), Constitution of Freedom: An Introduction to Legal Constitutionalism (2017, co-authored with Renáta Uitz), and The Oxford Handbook on Comparative Constitutional Law (2012, co-edited with Michel Rosenfeld). In 2020, professor Sajó was appointed to the Meta Oversight Board, an independent body to which people can appeal if they disagree with corporate decisions about Facebook or Instagram content.

András Sajó was interviewed by Dmytro Vovk.

Do you see any comprehensive doctrine of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence? Or does the Court use a more case-by-case approach and, as you said in one of your works with respect to national constitutional systems, has the Court “avoided arriving at unequivocal answers to the question of church-state or religion-state relations?”

If you try to make an analysis of ECtHR jurisprudence, you will see that it is significantly circumstantial. The Court got into the FoRB area relatively late, in Kokkinakis v. Greece (1993). It has a rather strong and relatively coherent approach when it comes to individual exercise of religion. However, when it comes to areas where FoRB conflicts with other rights like freedom of speech or non-discrimination, the Court’s jurisprudence becomes somewhat less clear. Think about employment and labor rights. Although the Court has decided on the matter, I’m not so sure that this is the final word, particularly because of the latest developments in the European Court of Justice, which seems to go in a different direction. The same is true regarding church-state relations. Public secondary education is an obvious example here. Compare Folgerø and Others v. Norway (2007) with Lautsi v. Italy (2011), and you will see the same principles resulted in very different conclusions. So there are some guiding principles, but the way they apply is to a very great extent determined by national differences. That makes it much more akin to a case-by-case approach.

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