Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 177
August-September 2014
Mansur Yalçın and Others v. Turkey - 21163/11
Judgment 16.9.2014 [Section II]
Article 2 of Protocol No. 1
Respect for parents' religious convictions
Lack of objectivity and pluralism in the teaching of religious instruction and limited possibilities for exemption from compulsory classes: violation
Facts – The applicants are the parents of children of compulsory school age. They are members of the Alevi religious community.
They complained to the Court that the provision of compulsory religion and ethics classes in primary and secondary schools infringed their right to respect for their religious beliefs. In the 2011/12 school year, following the publication of the judgment of the Court Hasan and Eylem Zengin v. Turkey, significant changes had been made to the curriculum and textbooks for the religion and ethics classes.
Law – Article 2 of Protocol No. 1: Following publication of the Hasan and Eylem Zengin judgment, changes had been made to the curriculum of the compulsory religion and ethics classes. The changes had been chiefly intended to ensure the provision of information about the various beliefs existing in Turkey, including the Alevi faith, but the main aspects of the curriculum had not really been overhauled since it focused predominantly on knowledge of Islam as practised and interpreted by the majority of the Turkish population. In so far as the case concerned a debate relating to Islamic theory, it was not for the Court to take a stance on such matters, which would be manifestly outside its jurisdiction. Nevertheless, it was clear from the case file and the Government’s observations that the curriculum of the religion and ethics classes was structured around the fundamental concepts of Islam, such as the Koran and the sunna. Admittedly, the fact that the curriculum gave greater prominence to Islam as practised and interpreted by the majority of the Turkish population than to the various minority interpretations of Islam and other religions and philosophies could not in itself be viewed as contravening the principles of pluralism and objectivity and potentially amounting to indoctrination. However, bearing in mind the particular features of the Alevi faith as compared with the Sunni understanding of Islam, the applicants could legitimately have considered that the way in which this subject was taught was likely to cause their children to face a conflict of allegiance between the school and their own values, thus giving rise to a possible issue under Article 2 of Protocol No. 1.
The Court failed to see how, given that the religion and ethics classes were compulsory and there was no appropriate exemption system in place, the prospect of pupils facing a conflict between the religious instruction provided by the school and their parents’ religious or philosophical convictions could be avoided. The discrepancies between the approach adopted in the curriculum and the particular features of the applicants’ faith as compared with the Sunni understanding of Islam were so great that they could scarcely be alleviated to a sufficient degree by the few references to Alevi beliefs and practice that had been included in the textbooks. In addition, the possibility that pupils might be given more detailed information in optional religious education classes did not exempt the State from its obligation to ensure that the teaching of compulsory subjects met the criteria of objectivity and pluralism while also respecting religious or philosophical convictions.
Accordingly, notwithstanding the significant changes made in 2011/12 to the curriculum and textbooks for the compulsory religion and ethics classes, the respondent State’s education system still did not appear adequately equipped to ensure respect for parents’ convictions. In particular, no possibility for an appropriate choice had been envisaged for the children of parents who had a religious or philosophical conviction other than that of Sunni Islam, and the very limited exemption procedure was likely to subject those parents to a heavy burden and to the need to disclose their religious or philosophical convictions in order to have their children exempted from the religion lessons.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: no claim made in respect of damage.
Article 46: One of the main reasons for the Court’s finding of a violation of the Convention was that in the field of religious instruction, the Turkish education system was still not adequately equipped to ensure respect for parents’ convictions. This conclusion in itself implied that the violation of the applicants’ right, as guaranteed by the second sentence of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1, had originated in a structural problem, as in the case of Hasan and Eylem Zengin. The Court therefore stressed the need to ensure appropriate means of affording these possibilities without further delay, in accordance with the principles set out in this judgment and without requiring pupils’ parents to disclose their own religious or philosophical convictions.
(See Hasan and Eylem Zengin v. Turkey, 1448/04, 9 October 2007, Information Note 101)
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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