*Senior UK judge opens door to better protection of religious belief

baroness-hale

April  2014 by
 
Baroness Hale, one of the UK’s most senior judges, and the first woman appointed to the highest court in the land, recently set out in a speech to Yale Law School criteria for accommodating religious beliefs when these appear to clash with the rights of particular groups in society. In the light of same-sex marriage becoming law, and the demands of groups for the ‘eradication’ of views unsympathetic to theirs,  the speech is timely and could be the start of a long-overdue restoration of the law’s balancing act on discrimination and religious freedom.
She has form in this area. As deputy president of the UK’s Supreme Court, Brenda Hale has sat on judicial panels which have heard the most vexing and important cases concerning religious freedom in Britain in modern times. As she says in her speech at Yale Law School, the anti-discrimination measures adopted in the UK as a result of EU law are blunt tools. There is a conflict between, on the one hand, measures prohibiting discrimination against people on the grounds of their sexual orientation, and on the other, measures prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief when people act in accordance with that religion or belief.

[Peter Smith is a barrister]