Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “The Right to Shun: Ghent’s Misguided Jehovah’s Witness Decision” Matthew P. Cavedon In March, the criminal court of Ghent, Belgium fined the congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) for “inciting discrimination and hatred or violence against former members.” The case centered on the JW practice of “disfellowshipping.” While the…
Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash. This article is part of our “What’s Wrong with Rights?” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. First of all, let me thank David Little, Jennifer Herdt, John Milbank, Joel Harrison, Hans-Martien ten Napel, and Mark Hill for taking the time and trouble to comment on my…
Photo by Eduardo Rodriguez on Unsplash. This article is part of our “Law and Religion Under Pressure: A One-Year Pandemic Retrospective” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Europe has been an epicenter of the pandemic. It has drawn a lot of attention due to how rapidly and deeply it…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “France’s New Marriage Laws Could Trigger Islamophobic Abuses“ Matthew P. Cavedon France is enacting sweeping legislation targeting Islamist extremism. Its new “separatism law” aims to ensure that Muslims integrate into the secular community. A number of its provisions, including restrictions on publishing information about public employees and limits…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “Denmark’s Provincial Bias against Foreign Religious Languages“ Matthew P. Cavedon Denmark has proposed a new law regulating religion. Under it, all sermons and homilies must be translated into Danish. This is being billed as a national security measure. It is also being attacked as a burden on small…
An EU Law on Religion – A Recent DevelopmentEmma Ahlm The following post is a reworking of the conclusions drawn in Emma Ahlm’s dissertation, EU Law and Religion – A Study of How the Court of Justice has Adjudicated on Religious Matters in EU Law at Uppsala University. ‘Would you tell me, please, which way…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “‘A Noble Alchemy’: Benefit of Clergy and the Early History of Leniency” Matthew P. Cavedon Criminal justice reform efforts have recently focused on the consequences of having a record. There is a growing sense that society needs to show mercy to those who pay the consequences for doing…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “Vatican Criminal Reforms Ignore Glaring Problems Even as Jurisdiction Expands Worldwide” Matthew P. Cavedon On February 16, Pope Francis announced changes to the Vatican’s criminal code. These alter court procedures to protect a few defense rights and make punishment more merciful. They come alongside recent expansions in the…
Photo by Ravi Pinisetti on Unsplash. The New Age of Rights In the 1990s, the European Union (EU) seemed to be done. The Old Continent was pacified. Soviet imperialism had melted away. European dictatorships — from Portugal to Spain, from Greece to Romania — had ended. European citizens could travel from Italy to the Netherlands,…
Photo by Mohammed Nasim. This article is part of our “What’s Wrong with Rights?” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Nigel Biggar’s publications are predictable, but never uninteresting: predictable in that he is unashamedly a conservative moral philosopher who self-defines as a professional Christian ethicist, a description which seems…