Religion in the workplace : Eweida and others v United Kingdom

Abstract

The European Court of Human Rights judgment in Eweida and Others v United Kingdom dealt with the increasingly controversial questions of religious symbols at work and the clash between free conscience and anti-discrimination norms. In a change of approach, it held that the right to resign could no longer be seen as adequate protection for religious freedom and that workplace norms that restrict religious liberty must satisfy a proportionality test. However, it accorded a wide margin of appreciation to States in reconciling freedom of conscience and freedom from discrimination, ruling that the importance of non-discrimination could justify a failure to exempt a religious individual from complying with a policy forbidding discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.