This article deals with recent developments in legislation and court rulings concerning churches. These developments are divergent in terms of the issues they concern and the outcome they show. The article sketches the background of each of these developments and analyses and explains them in the perspective of the principle of church autonomy. It concludes with recommendations to the legislature and the courts as well as churches themselves.

Since society was secularized, the values of democracy based on the rule of law seem to have the best (potential) binding force for social cohesion. These values are linked to Christianity however. The relation between both will be explained by a critical review of Larry Siedentops Inventing the individual and Olivier Roy’s l’Europe est-elle chrétienne?

While the legal path to ending marital captivity has been cleared, socio-cultural obstacles continue to prevent victims from going to court. This article focuses on the religious and socio-cultural elements within the Dutch-Pakistani community that promote the continued existence of marital captivity, thereby zooming in on the importance of the nikah, the prevalence of (transnational) arranged marriages, and the concept of family honor.

Buddhism has very specific ideas about an idealized form of government in Asia. These ideas may be ancient but they very often play a part in the background of politics up to modernity. Even within republics where religious monarchy has long since disappeared, a certain supernatural foundation on the basis of which a government functions may still be present. Opposition to a government can often imply resistance to a world order that is actually of supranatural origin. This article focuses on historical dimensions of this phenomenon (the position of the Buddha, the origin of the monarchy and Emperor Ashoka), but also on modern forms (Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar). Concerning Myanmar, the recent developments around the Rohingyas are placed in a cultural perspective.

In Europe, female circumcision has been considered a grave violation of human rights. However, many European countries fail to combat this illegal practice. This article answers the question why criminal law enforcement with regard to female circumcision seems to fail in various European states, with the exception of France. To answer this question, this article analyses various models of citizenship.

Certain radical public acts of expression, those which for instance incite hatred or recruit participants for armed conflict, are punishable under criminal law, even when these pronouncements are religiously motivated. This study examines which statements incur punishment, and the role freedom of religion and freedom of expression play when making this assessment.

Some months after the German occupation of the Netherlands, the Reichskommissar inroduced a Germanlike system of collecting finances for the poor people, soon followd by an equal system of social work. These initiatives at the same time aimed at urge the national-socialistic ideology, as such dismissed by the society and the churches. The occupying authorities avoided a clash with the churches.

In this article, the question is raised which constitutional answer to immigration is most sustainable with a view to future multicultural societies. I focus on the constitutional answers to immigration in France, Italy and Canada. In France, in 2010, legislation was adopted prohibiting the wearing of face-covering clothing in public. With this ban, the French intended to enhance the equal participation of citizens in society and to protect the equality of the sexes. In Italy, a heated debate took place about the display of crucifixes in (public) schools, which resulted in a restoration of the predominance of the Catholic religion. Across the ocean, in the Canadian province of Québec, the National Assembly of Québec has been discussing a ‘Charter’, whose prevailing idea is to enhance the neutrality of the state, among others by prohibiting religious clothing in public institutions. The question is which of these approaches is best defensible to regulate a society, which will undoubtedly become even more diverse in the near future.

The Court recognizes the appeal to the freedom of religion, as laid down in Article 10 European Convention of Human Rights. This freedom is not illimitable, however. According to the Court, the prohibition of wearing face-covering clothes is legitimate and the aims of public security, equality of men and women, and the wish to express a specific viewpoint on ‘living together in society’, are in conformity with the limitation clause of Article 10 ECHR. The Court considers the law proportionate and ‘necessary in a democratic society’ with a view to the aims of the law, with the caveat that the law is not applicable in places of worship open to the public.
In the annotation, the parliamentary debate leading to the adoption of the law is analyzed. The law is a clear expression of a specific stance towards society in general and the position of men and women in particular. As it is a choice by the democratic institutions, the Court takes an attitude of restraint in this matter. All the same, the question is raised whether the term ‘in publicly accessible places’ may prove to be too vague and with that, not proportional to the legitimate aims pursued.

The last decade the wearing of face hiding clothes has come up as a rather new phenomenon in the Netherlands and surrounding countries. Although not that many people wear them, a rather wide aversion exists against this phenomenon and is directed especially against the Islamic burqa. A rather intensive public and political debat is going on concerning the allowance of those clothes. In different countries, among which the Netherlands, France and Belgium, the legislator is drafting laws which aim to forbid the wearing of these clothes. This article gives an overview of the debate on this issue in especially the aforementioned countries and reflects upon it, with a special focus on the freedom of belief and religion.

Since 30 years the Netherlands’ government practises an integration policy towards ethnic minorities. From the beginning, this comprehensive approach is challenged by demands of immigrated religious communities, e.g. the erection of buildings of worship. For the government, religion is an influential circumstance, not an object of the policy-making process. Therefore religious matters deserve political attention.The mid-nineties of the twentieth century brought the Islam into the focus of national policy. The first issue concerned the appointments on a temporary basis of Turkish imams by the Turkish authorities. That evoked the need for a Dutch training-school in order to be prevented from further admissions from abroad. In the meantime, compulsory introductory courses for religious leaders with a non-EU- or EEA-nationality were introduced. Since nine-eleven, the threats of Islamic ultra-orthodox tendencies dominate the political discourse.