About the conference

At the heart of the conference was the case of Lillian Ladele who was disciplined for refusing to conduct civil partnership ceremonies. Her case was heard in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) where the majority found in favour of Islington. However, two judges on the ECtHR dissented, arguing that Ladele was discriminated against because her objections in conscience were not respected. Judge Vincent De Gaetano, Chief Justice Emeritus of Malta, was one of those dissenting judges and our core speaker at the conference.

Proceedings began with a lecture on the nature of conscience by Dr Russell Wilcox. He first defined conscience as the application of knowledge to a particular action with a view to ascertaining its moral character. From there he described what a judgement of conscience involves and what factors limit a conscience. He focused on two limitations – knowledge and action and explained how intrinsic and extrinsic errors could occur based on these limitations. Once the limitations of a conscience were established Dr Wilcox outlined how a bad conscience might be corrected and clarified what a conscience actually binds. Then he addressed the relationship between prudence and conscience and finally emphasised the importance of protecting a conscience.

Judge Vincent gave us a history of cases that had led up to four cases being heard and the outcome that was achieved. First was the case of Lautsi v Italy followed by the case of Golders v UK, then Tyrer v UK, Soering v UK, Airey v Ireland, Pichon and Sajous v France, Bayatyan v Armenia and finally Jakóbski v. Poland. He then went on to discuss the Eweida v UK case. He explained that Nadia Eweida, an employee of British Airways, had been sent home after refusing to conceal her crucifix. Ms Eweida sued British Airways for loss of earnings during this time and the ECtHR found in favour of her and awarded her compensation.

In the case of Chaplin v UK Shirley Chaplin, a nurse, refused to remove a crucifix and was eventually made redundant. However, the ECtHR did not consider these actions a violation under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Gary McFarlane agreed to counsel same sex couples even though same sex sexual relations were contrary to his religious beliefs. He stated that if any problems arose he would discuss them with his supervisor. He was dismissed for gross misconduct apparently for agreeing to counsel same sex couples without having any intention of doing so. As with Chaplin the ECtHR did not find that there had been a violation of Article 9 or Article 14.

Lillian Ladele was employed by the London Borough of Islington as a registrar of births, deaths and marriages in 2002. When the Civil Partnership Act 2004 came into force Islington extended the role of registrar to include civil partnerships. Initially, Ms Ladele was permitted to make informal arrangements with colleagues to exchange work so that she did not have to conduct civil partnership ceremonies. However this soon changed and Ms Ladele complained of direct and indirect discrimination on grounds of religion or belief and harassment. The ECtHR found that there was no violation of Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 9. However Judge Vincent disagreed and lodged a dissenting opinion with Judge Vučinić stating that there was in fact a violation. He noted that Ms Ladele had tried to accommodate the rule and no clients had complained. It had been the borough that complained. Judge Vincent believed that had this case been heard independently of the other cases and had been argued that her rights to freedom of conscience had been violated rather than her freedom of religion then there could well have been another outcome to the case.

Questions

All three presentations stimulated a huge plethora of questions not only about the Ladele case but also about the role of a judge, judicial activism which was at its peak in the 1980s and 1990s, who has the upper hand in terms of deeming what is right or wrong – the politicians or the judges, are we truly seeking the truth or simply enacting a discussion about truth? Another question was is there a positive obligation on the state to facilitate the formulation of conscience without trespassing on the values of conscience itself. Another participant wanted to know how to distinguish between freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. After clearly distinguishing between the two Judge Vincent concluded there hadn’t been any cases that really provided the opportunity to make those distinctions clear in law. He would welcome those cases if they came along.