Secularism before the Strasbourg Court: Abstract Constitutional Principles as a Basis for Limiting Rights

The justification for the restrictions on religion inherent in secularism is the subject of lively debate in constitutional and political theory. In Ebrahimian v France the Strasbourg Court was required to assess whether the European Convention on Human Rights can accommodate a secularism whose aims and justifications go beyond the protection of the rights of others and include abstract goals such as upholding the religious neutrality of the state. The resulting judgment highlights both the inability of rights to provide an adequate account of the relationship between religion and the state and how the text of the Convention struggles to give adequate weight to constitutional principles whose justification arises from sources other than the protection of fundamental rights. I suggest that the Court was correct to reaffirm its stance that secularism and strict neutrality can be in harmony with the values of the Convention. However, it needs to be more clear about the reasons for this stance and to be vigilant in its protection of private autonomy so that the use of abstract principles to restrict religious expression does not give excessive latitude to states to restrict individual autonomy and minority right