Slaughtering Religious Freedom at the Court of Justice of the European Union

Abstract

The Court of Justice of the European Union is rapidly emerging as the new boss of religious freedom in Europe, and it has issued several important judgments. Most of these cases have had decidedly mixed results. But especially in a trio of recent religious slaughtering cases, the Court of Justice has demonstrated an especially narrow, weak, and troubling understanding of religious freedom. In all three cases, the Court rejected challenges to against local regulations that sharply limited halal and kosher ritual slaughtering. All three cases feature rather blunt dismissal of the claims of discrete religious minorities whose central religious practices were targeted and subordinated to state concerns for animal welfare. The Court’s main concern was to ensure that the state laws in question were neutral on their face – a standard that both European and American courts have shown provides marginal judicial protection for religious minorities.

Keywords: Law, Religion, Law and Religion, Court of Justice of the European Union, religious freedom, ritual slaughtering, religious neutrality, Judaism, Islam