ECHR Article 9-1
Freedom of religion
Dissolution of religious community without relevant and sufficient reasons: violation
Facts – The applicant was a Pentecostal mission that registered as a religious organisation in November 1991. In 1996 it founded a Biblical college and Sunday school. However, it was dissolved with immediate effect in October 2007 by order of the Supreme Court on the grounds that it had conducted educational activities without authorisation and in breach of sanitary and hygiene rules.
Law – Article 9 of the Convention interpreted in the light of Article 11: The applicant’s dissolution amounted to an interference with its rights to freedom of religion under Article 9 of the Convention interpreted in the light of the right to freedom of association enshrined in Article 11. The dissolution was ordered in accordance with the law and pursued the legitimate aims of protecting health and the rights of others by putting an end to unlicensed education in inadequate sanitary conditions.
The applicant had founded the Biblical college and the Sunday school in 1996 and had run them for more than eleven years without interruption. A federal court had stated in 2002 that Sunday school fell outside the scope of the Education Act and did not require a licence. In these circumstances, the novel interpretation of the Act with regard to the mandatory licensing of Sunday schools adopted by the courts in the present case was not sufficiently foreseeable to enable the applicant to anticipate its application and adjust its conduct accordingly. Indeed, some nine months after giving judgment upholding the applicant’s dissolution, the Supreme Court had reversed its stance on the licensing of Sunday schools, holding that teaching religion to children in such schools did not amount to education and that alleged breaches of the sanitary rules could not justify dissolving a religious organisation.
It had not, therefore, been convincingly established that the applicant had received advance notice that its activities were in breach of the law. The Supreme Court had ordered its dissolution just one day after finding it liable for a breach of the sanitary rules., despite the fact that there was nothing to indicate that any of defects were irremediable or constituted a clear and imminent danger to life and limb and without offering it a choice between rectifying the breaches or discontinuing the activities related to the instruction of its followers.
Nor did the Court accept that the dissolution of the applicant, a registered religious organisation, was necessary because the Sunday school or Biblical college were not registered as separate legal entities. The domestic courts had not indicated what other, less intrusive, means of achieving the declared aim of the protection of the rights of students had been considered and why they had been deemed insufficient. Accordingly, the domestic authorities had not shown that the dissolution, which undermined the very substance of the applicant’s rights to freedom of religion and association, was the only option for the fulfilment of the aims they pursued.
Regarding the nature and severity of the sanction, as a result of the Russian courts’ decisions, the applicant had ceased to exist as a registered religious organisation and its members were divested of the right to manifest their religion in community with others and to engage in the activities indispensable to their religious practice.
As the Court noted in Jehovah’s Witnesses of Moscow v. Russia, by virtue of section 14 of the Religions Act the only sanction which Russian courts could use against religious organisations found to have breached the law is forced dissolution. The Act provided no possibility of issuing a warning or imposing a fine. The sanction of dissolution could be applied indiscriminately without regard to the gravity of the breach in question, a practice which the Constitutional Court had found to be incompatible with the constitutional meaning of the relevant provisions as long ago as 2003. In ordering the applicant’s dissolution, the Russian courts did not heed the case-law of the Constitutional Court or the relevant Convention standards and they to assess the impact of dissolution on the fundamental rights of Pentecostal believers. In sum, the applicant’s dissolution had not been necessary in a democratic society.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: Finding of a violation constituted sufficient just satisfaction in respect of any non-pecuniary damage.
33203/08 – Chamber Judgment, [2014] ECHR 606, 33203/08 – Legal Summary, [2014] ECHR 806
Bailii, Bailii
European Convention on Human Rights 9-1
Human Rights
Human Rights, Ecclesiastical, Education
Updated: 17 December 2021; Ref: scu.535170