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European Court of Human Rights will hear Italian crucifix appeal

The European Court of Human Rights has agreed to hear an appeal of its ruling that Italy must ban crucifixes from public school classrooms. The court has agreed to hear the case in the Grand Chamber, with the full panel of justices. This means that interested third parties will be able to make interventions, similar to amicus curae briefs in North American courts, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com.

The court said in a statement March 2, “The college of five judges in the court’s Grand Chamber accepted the appeal lodged by the Italian government on January 28.”

The case of Lautsi v. Italy caused an uproar in Italy when the court ruled that it violated the principle of religious freedom for Italian classrooms and public offices to display crucifixes. The complaint was taken to the court by Soile Lautsi, a Finnish woman living near Venice who claimed that her atheist children should not be forced to view a crucifix in school. She was awarded €5000 (about US $7200) compensation.

The Italian government immediately pledged to appeal the ruling, which said, “The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities ... restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions.”

Many local authorities throughout Italy reacted to the decision with defiance, ordering police checks to ensure that all classrooms and public offices were displaying crucifixes, with some levying large fines for non-compliance. One town erected a large crucifix in the town square. In early January, the Italian High Court issued a ruling asserting the supremacy of Italian law and custom over the orders of the European Court of Human Rights.

A political statement was issued recently by some representatives of the Council of Europe who were meeting in Interlaken, Switzerland, to discuss reform of the ECHR. The statement “invited” the court “to apply in a uniform and rigorous manner the criteria concerning admissibility and jurisdiction.” At that meeting, Carmelo Mifsu Bonnici, Justice Minister of Malta, said the Court “is not sufficiently sensitive” to the “cultural characteristics” of the “national identities” of member states.

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TAGS: European Court of Human Rights Italian crucifix appeal public school classrooms

[03/13/2010]

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