Defending
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

A cornerstone of democracy is freedom of religion — man’s right to believe and practice his religion as he chooses, as proclaimed in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is one of the great paradoxes that religions are the primary forces of mutual respect and peace, yet a significant percentage of the world’s turmoil arises from deep-seated intolerance toward other religious beliefs and practices. Every religion should strive to be a model of tolerance and be at the forefront of programmes that promote mutual respect. Officials at every level of government should exercise absolute neutrality in questions of religion, as the laws of most democratic countries mandate. Thus, when facing bias and discrimination due to religious differences, the Church considers it an obligation to take action to remedy this violation of a basic human right. It has fought and won many important battles for religious freedom in the courts and has relentlessly championed broad public education programmes to raise people’s appreciation of religious tolerance.

A very important and influential body of international human rights experts, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, has set the international standard by declaring that “the terms ‘belief’ and ‘religion’ are to be broadly construed,” and that religious freedom “is not limited in its application to traditional religions or to religions and beliefs with institutional characteristics or practices analogous to those of traditional religions.” The Committee further warned that it “views with concern any tendency to discriminate against any religion or belief for any reason, including the fact that they are newly established, or represent religious minorities that may be the subject of hostility on the part of a predominant religious community.” The jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights is closely aligned with this standard, thus fostering the religious pluralism necessary for a united Europe in the 21st century.

In this spirit, through its hard-won legal judgments and decrees, the Church has set many durable precedents, helping numerous religions gain protection for their rights under law. These decisions were obtained in countries around the globe and many of them are explained or referred to in the ensuing pages of this site. In this section, we highlight some of the many rulings obtained by churches of Scientology that have had a profound and direct impact on securing religious freedom and pluralism.

The Church of Scientology has fought and won many important battles for religious freedom and has championed broad public education programmes to promote religious tolerance.

In 1983, in a case brought by a Scientology church, the Australian High Court established, for the first time, the definition of religion under the Australian Constitution and set a precedent that has protected the rights of religions in that nation ever since.

In 1997, in a far-reaching decision, the Supreme Court of Italy revised a lower court decision that had restrictively defined religion in a Judeo-Christian context and provided guidelines for a much more expansive definition. The decision has been of great assistance to minority religions in Italy in defending their religious rights.

In 1997, Germany’s Federal Administrative Court affirmed that Scientology religious services are “spiritual counselling” aimed at “the attainment of a higher level of being.” This case established the principle that the government may not arbitrarily classify a religious organisation’s method of financing itself as commercial simply because it differs from that of some older churches.

In March 2002, Scientologists gained a significant victory for freedom of belief in Egypt. Scientologists had been arrested by the Egyptian authorities and were held in inhuman conditions because they had distributed writings of the founder of Scientology, despite their having first obtained permission for the distribution from the relevant government agency. After the Church alerted human rights and religious leaders and Amnesty International decried the arrests, the Egyptian court accepted the Church’s arguments. As reported by Associated Press, the judges characterised distribution of the work as “spreading new thought” and that “condemning people for new ideas is a violation of human rights.”

Some of the many rulings obtained by churches of Scientology that have had a profound and direct impact towards advancing religious freedom and pluralism.

In the United States, the Church has created scores of precedents that protect the rights of religious organisations against governmental interference with their ecclesiastical affairs. At the end of the 1980s, the United States Internal Revenue Service instituted wide-ranging examinations of several Scientology churches, in the course of which the IRS issued summonses requesting copies of virtually every document in the Churches’ possession. The Church of Scientology in Boston, Massachusetts, challenged the summons on the grounds that it constituted harassment because most of the documents were not necessary to the IRS’s examination. A federal judge agreed with the Church and quashed the government’s summons, a decision upheld on appeal. The courts held that “the IRS has not shown that the church records requested are ‘necessary’ to its investigation.” These decisions set a precedent establishing that the IRS must restrict examinations of religious organisations to exact, legally defined standards and cannot arbitrarily conduct intrusive and harassing investigations into churches.