The High Court in Northern Ireland has quashed the General Register Office’s (GRO) decision to refuse an application for legal recognition of a humanist marriage on the grounds that it breached the applicant’s rights under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The applicant is a humanist and a member of the British Humanist Association. Her application to the GRO seeking temporary authorisation for a British Humanist Association (BHA) wedding celebrant to perform her upcoming marriage was refused.
The Court found that the applicant’s humanist beliefs easily reached the level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance to engage her Article 9(1) rights. The Court stated that the essence of the applicant’s case was based on the different treatment between religious bodies and humanists who both share beliefs. The basis of her claim was that the State had chosen to empower religious bodies to perform legally valid marriages and had refused to extend this privilege to those who wished to marry in accordance with their humanist beliefs.
The Court concluded that the applicant’s desire to have a humanist officiate at her wedding was indeed a manifestation of her humanist beliefs and that therefore Article 9(2) was engaged in this case. It further concluded that humanist ceremonies are a manifestation of humanist beliefs in general and are entirely consistent with the stated objects of the BHA which include the advancement of humanism, namely a non-religious ethical lifestance, the essential elements of which are commitment to human wellbeing and a reliance on reason, experience and a naturalist view of the world.
The Court ordered the GRO to grant the application which will give temporary authorisation for a celebrant to perform a legally valid and binding humanist wedding ceremony, and recommended that the Department of Finance should now proceed to introduce regulations so as to remedy the breaches of Convention rights identified in the case.
The Court of Appeal has granted an interm authority for legal recognition of the wedding to proceed on a without prejudice basis, while the appeal has been adjourned to September.
Click here for a summary of the judgement In Re Laura Smyth (Humanist Marriage).