UK Supreme Court rules Religious Education in Northern Ireland illegal

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the present approach to Religious Education and collective worship in Northern Ireland schools breaches human rights and is illegal.

The court reached its verdict based on the view that the current curriculum doesn’t approach the topic in an “objective, critical and pluralist manner”.

The judgment was handed down on Wednesday after a father and daughter – who can’t be named for legal reasons – challenged how RE is being taught in Northern Ireland schools. 

The family became concerned after the girl, named only as JR87 in court documents, began praying before meals at home. When asked about it by her non-religious parents, she told them she had been taught to do that at her primary school, which she attended between the ages of 4 and 7. Her parents then approached the varsity because they didn’t want their daughter to be taught that Christianity was an absolute truth. The school told them that they were following the core syllabus for RE.

The father and daughter originally won their case on the High Court in Belfast, which ruled in 2022 that the way in which RE and collective worship were being taught didn’t meet the requirement to be “objective, critical, and pluralist.” 

Additionally, the court found that the rights of JR87 and her father, named only as G, were breached – specifically the appropriate of fogeys to have their children educated “in conformity with their very own religious and philosophical convictions” under the European Convention on Human Rights, and Article 9 of the convention which protects freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

The 2022 judgment also found that the appropriate of withdrawal was not a sufficient treatment to the issue since it placed a burden on parents, and youngsters may very well be stigmatised.

The Department of Education for Northern Ireland successfully appealed the High Court ruling last 12 months, but JR87 and her father appealed to the UK Supreme Court which has now overturned that verdict in favour of the 2022 judgment from the High Court in Belfast.

In its judgment on Wednesday, the Supreme Court said that the failure to deliver RE in a way that’s “objective, critical, and pluralist” is tantamount to “indoctrination” – the court said it used the word “indoctrination” as “a synonym for evangelism and proselytising devoid of any negative connotations”. 

It also said that the case was “not about secularism within the education system”.

“No one is suggesting that religious education mustn’t be provided in schools in Northern Ireland,” the judgment reads.

“Rather, JR87 and G strongly support the supply of non secular education provided it doesn’t amount to indoctrination.” 

It continued, “Secondly, this case will not be about whether Christianity ought to be the predominant or primary faith that pupils find out about in schools in Northern Ireland.

“Historically and today, Christianity is an important religion in Northern Ireland. It is throughout the Department’s margin of appreciation in planning and setting the curriculum for the greater part of non secular education to give attention to knowledge of Christianity.”

DUP MP Carla Lockhart said she was “dissatisfied” by the judgment but that her party would “remain steadfast”.

“Christian teaching and values have long been part of college life in Northern Ireland, and we’ll proceed working to make sure they’re protected,” she said. 

The Catholic Bishop of Derry, Donal McKeown, who can also be chairman of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools and a former headmaster, told the BBC he was not surprised by the judgment and that he was “quite sanguine” in regards to the prospect of the nearly 20-year-old curriculum being revised. 

He has some questions, though, in regards to the implications of the judgment: “Will there be a difference when it comes to applications of the laws in maintained schools and controlled schools?

“In other words can a Catholic school assert the appropriate to show a certain theology and expect parents to purchase into that?”

He added, “I’m quite open to seeing where this goes but I believe I would not want it to be seen as some form of statement that religion ought to be banned in schools.”

The NI Department of Education states that RE is “a compulsory a part of the Northern Ireland curriculum” that should be provided in schools based on the core syllabus.

That syllabus was drawn up in 2007 by the 4 predominant churches in Northern Ireland – the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church, and the Methodist Church. The core syllabus has a Christian focus and fogeys “have the appropriate to withdraw their child from part or all of RE or collective worship”.