香港六合彩

The European Court of Justice has extensively cited the work of听Dr Ronan McCrea, Senior Lecturer in Law at 香港六合彩 Faculty of Laws, in a key ruling that sets out the limits of the right of religious organisations to discriminate in order to maintain their ethos for the first time.

Advocate General Tanchev draws on Dr McCrea鈥檚 work听in his听听this week on the case of a woman of no religion who claims to have been denied a job with a charitable organisation run by the Evangelical Church in Germany.

The Court has to balance the applicant鈥檚 right to be free of discrimination against the right of the Church to autonomy and must rule on听whether the limited exemptions from the duty not to discriminate on grounds of religion that are written into law.

The Advocate General鈥檚 Opinion, which is a preliminary ruling given in cases raising important issues of law, rejects the argument that the recognition of the status and role of religious organisations in Article 17 of the Treaty means that EU law must adopt a hands off approach.

The Advocate General quotes Dr McCrea鈥檚 argument in his book听听that 鈥渢he听EU鈥檚 constitutional imperatives reflect [鈥�]听鈥榲alue pluralism鈥�. [under which], conflicts between differing rights, or approaches thereto, are considered to be normal and are resolved through balancing conflicting elements rather than according priority to one over another in a hierarchical fashion.鈥�

This underpins his conclusion that national courts applying EU听legislation in this area must engage in a careful balancing of the rights of听employees to be free of discrimination and the right of religious bodies to self-determination, weighing factors such as the link between the job in question and the proclamatory mission of the Church.

Dr McCrea commented:

鈥楾his is an important case听which represents the first time these exemptions for religious employers have been interpreted by the Court of Justice. The Advocate General鈥檚 Opinion stresses the need to balance the various rights involved.

This听reinforces the tendency of European law to strive to balance conflicting rights rather than to听grant almost absolute priority to听the autonomy rights of听religious organisations as we have seen in the United States.鈥�