Supreme Court hears case on Christian RE and collective worship in Northern Ireland

The Supreme Court has finished two days of hearing a legal case challenging the fact that RE and collective worship in Northern Ireland are Christian in nature. The case, taken by a parent and child challenging this fact, is known as JR87. The family won at the Northern Ireland High Court but then lost at the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court has now reserved judgment on the current appeal, and may not rule for weeks or months. Northern Ireland Humanists supports the family’s case and intervened in support at the Court of Appeal.

RE in Northern Ireland follows a curriculum that was written by the four biggest churches. It is entirely Christian, apart from one post-primary school module focused on ‘world faiths’. There is no inclusion of humanism, despite the growing population of non-religious people, particularly younger people. Northern Ireland Humanists has argued that the RE curriculum must reflect the diverse beliefs of the population, both religious and humanist. Meanwhile, collective worship is exclusively Christian in nature – just like in the rest of the UK. Parents can withdraw their children from RE and collective worship but this can be stigmatising for the child and no meaningful alternative of equal educational worth has to be offered.

History of the case

The case was brought by a Belfast-based non-religious father and his child who argue the exclusively Christian RE curriculum and collective worship requirements in Northern Ireland breach their rights under Article 2 of the First Protocol to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), namely that ‘the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure… [that in state schools] education and teaching [are] in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions’.

In the High Court of Northern Ireland in 2022 the judge ruled that ‘religious education and collective worship are not conveyed in an objective, critical or pluralist manner in Northern Ireland [schools].’ The exclusively Christian curriculum and collective worship requirement were therefore ruled to be discriminatory.

However, the Northern Ireland Department of Education appealed to the Court of Appeal last October. It ruled that while it agreed with the High Court that the RE curriculum was not objective, critical, or pluralistic, this was not sufficient to conclude there had been a breach of human rights law as the parent had not – in this case – taken up the right to withdraw his child from RE. The provision of what it deemed to be a potentially non-discriminatory exemption that could accommodate the wishes of the parents exists in Northern Irish law, and so it concluded there was insufficient evidence that the child had been subject to a faith-based education against the will of their parent without remedy. Northern Ireland Humanists intervened in the case.

The Supreme Court appeal

The family in the case appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. The appeal was based on the argument that the right to withdraw is not sufficient to ensure children receive education that respects the religious and philosophical beliefs of their parents, as there is no considerable alternative to the teaching of religion from the exclusively Christian curriculum requirements in Northern Ireland. It was argued that it should not be the case that parents have to withdraw their children as the problem, as identified by the High Court, was that there is no objective, critical, or pluralistic expectation of RE in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland Humanists Coordinator Boyd Sleator commented:

‘We await the judgment of the Supreme Court on this case. The RE curriculum and assemblies in Northern Ireland are unobjective, uncritical, and non-pluralistic. But a large and growing share of Northern Ireland’s population is not Christian. Students deserve an education that reflects the diverse religious and humanist beliefs of our modern nation but currently they are denied it.’