Freedom of Religion under Bills of Rights

Freedom of Religion cover

edited by and Neville Rochow

FREE | 2012 | Ebook (PDF) | 978-0-9871718-1-8 | 464 pp

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  • Chapter details

    Foreword: Human Rights and Courts
    The Hon Sir Anthony Mason AC KBE
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    INTRODUCTION

    1. Protecting Religious Freedom under Bills of Rights: Australia as Microcosm
    Paul Babie and Neville Rochow
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    SETTING THE SCENE

    2. How Religion Constrains Law and the Idea of Choice
    Ngaire Naffine
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    3. Is the Emperor Wearing the Wrong Clothes? Human Rights and Social Good in the Context of Australian Secularity: Theological Perspectives
    Bruce Kaye
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    4. Anniversary Overlap: Or What happens when St Paul Meets the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
    Alan Cadwallader
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    CONTEMPORARY FREEDOM OF RELIGION ISSUES

    5. Defamation and Vilification: Rights to Reputation, Free Speech and Freedom of Religion at Common Law and under Human Rights Laws
    Neil Foster
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    6. Should an Australian Bill of Rights Address Emerging International Human Rights Norms? The Challenge of ‘Defamation of Religion’
    Robert C Blitt
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    7. Christian Concerns about an Australian Charter of Rights
    Patrick Parkinson
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    8. Apostasy in Islam and the Freedom of Religion in International Law
    Asmi Wood
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    COMPARATIVE EXPERIENCE WITH FREEDOM OF RELIGION

    Europe

    9. Political Culture and Freedom of Conscience: A Case Study of Austria
    David M Kirkham
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    10. The Sky is Falling if Judges Decide Religious Controversies! – Or is it? The German Experience of Religious Freedom Under a Bill of Rights
    Cornelia Koch
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    11. Religious Freedom in a Secular Society: The Case of the Islamic Headscarf in France
    Nicky Jones
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    12. Religious Freedom in the UK after the Human Rights Act 1998
    Ian Leigh
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    North America

    13. Judicial Interpretation, Neutrality and the US Bill of Rights
    Frank S Ravitch
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    14. Protecting Religious Freedom: Two Counterintuitive Dialectics in US Free Exercise Jurisprudence
    Brett G Scharffs
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    15. Walking the Tightrope: The Struggle of Canadian Courts to Define Freedom of Religion under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
    Barbara Billingsley
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    16.ÌýQuo Vadis The Free Exercise of Religion? The Diminishment of Student Religious Expression in US Public Schools
    Charles J Russo
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    Australia and New Zealand

    17. Freedom from Discrimination on the Basis of Religion
    Kris Hanna
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    18. Ruminations from the Shaky Isles on Religious Freedom in the Bill of Rights Era
    Rex Tauati Ahdar
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    19. Indigenous Peoples and Bills of Rights
    Paul Rishworth
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The Australian Constitution contains no guarantee of freedom of religion or freedom of conscience. Indeed, it contains very few provisions dealing with rights — in essence, it is a Constitution that confines itself mainly to prescribing a framework for federal government, setting out the various powers of government and limiting them as between federal and state governments and the three branches of government without attempting to define the rights of citizens except in minor respects. […]

Whether Australia should have a national bill of rights has been a controversial issue for quite some time. This is despite the fact that Australia has acceded to the ICCPR, as well as the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, thereby accepting an international obligation to bring Australian law into line with the ICCPR, an obligation that Australia has not discharged. Australia is the only country in the Western world without a national bill of rights. The chapters that follow in this book debate the situation in Australia and in various other Western jurisdictions.

From 'Foreword' by The Hon Sir Anthony Mason AC KBE: Human Rights and Courts

About the editors

 is Associate Professor, Adelaide Law School, at The ³ÉÈË´óƬ, and Founder and Director of the ³ÉÈË´óƬ Research Unit for the Study of Society, Law and Religion (RUSSLR).

Neville Rochow SC is a Barrister at Howard Zelling Chambers in Adelaide, South Australia.

Review

'At the heart of this judiciously edited collection of essays is the contentious debate in Australia about whether to adopt a national bill of rights.

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Many readers will be surprised to learn that Australia lacks a national bill of rights; it is the only modern Western nation without one.

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Paul Babie, Neville Rochow and their colleagues in the new Research Unit for the Study of Law, Religion and Society at the ³ÉÈË´óƬ have brought together a strong cast of Australian and international scholars to put the Australian issues in sharp comparative relief.'

John Witte, Jr, Emory University, Atlanta Ecclesiastical Law Journal, January 2014.