Belgian ban on kosher, halal slaughter legitimately interferes with religious freedom, European court rules
February 14, 2024
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CWN Editor's Note: The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that a ban on kosher and halal slaughter of animals in most of Belgium legitimately interferes with the right to religious freedom of Jews and Muslims.
The Court “found that there had been an interference with the applicants’ freedom of religion,” the ECHR announced. “However, the Court considered that the protection of public morals,” also mentioned in the European human rights treaty that the Court was interpreting, “could not be understood as being intended solely to protect human dignity.”
Emphasizing that “the concept of ‘morals’ was inherently evolutive,” the ECHR upheld lower court decisions “which had both found that the protection of animal welfare was an ethical value to which contemporary democratic societies attached growing importance.”
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