The European Court of Human Rights has held, for the first time, that sincerely held vegan beliefs can fall within the protection of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of thought and conscience.
The Court found that Switzerland had violated Articles 9 and 13 of the Convention after authorities failed to properly consider the requests of two detainees for entirely vegan diets in accordance with their ethical beliefs.
The applicants, G.K. and A.S., are Swiss nationals living in Switzerland. Between November 2018 and October 2019, G.K. was held in pre-trial detention in connection with allegations including property damage committed in the context of his support for an anti-speciesism movement. Anti-speciesism is the ethical concept that it is immoral to exploit or harm animals just because they belong to a different species.
Between February and April 2021, A.S. was detained in a psychiatric hospital. Upon admission, he informed nursing staff that his ethical beliefs required him to follow a vegan diet. Both applicants complained that they were not provided with entirely vegan diets, meaning diets excluding not only meat but all food of animal origin.
The relevant authorities indicated that steps had been taken, or would be taken, to provide diets as closely aligned with the applicants’ beliefs as possible. However, despite repeated requests, no formal decisions were made on their complaints.
The applicants subsequently brought proceedings before the relevant cantonal courts. Their applications were declared inadmissible because there was no formal decision capable of being appealed. The Federal Supreme Court subsequently upheld those findings.
The applicants complained to the European Court of Human Rights under Articles 9 and 13, arguing that the failure to provide vegan diets interfered with their freedom of thought and conscience and that they had no effective remedy through which to challenge the authorities’ decisions. This was the first time the Court had considered whether dietary requirements arising from an ethical belief such as veganism could fall within the protection of Article 9.
The Court examined the issue as one concerning freedom of thought and conscience rather than religious freedom. Having regard to comparative legal research across the Convention States, the Court observed that veganism was generally regarded as a non-religious belief.
The Court found that the applicants’ vegan beliefs satisfied the requirement of having a sufficient degree of “cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance” to attract protection under Article 9. The applicants therefore had an arguable claim that their treatment engaged rights protected by the Convention.
The Court noted that neither applicant had been systematically provided with entirely vegan meals. While approaches to vegan diets varied across the 46 Convention States examined, there was a common understanding that requests for vegan diets should be taken into account.
In circumstances where the applicants had consistently and genuinely expressed their vegan beliefs and requested appropriate diets while deprived of their liberty, the Swiss authorities were required to consider those complaints substantively and within a clear legal framework.
However, the national courts had focused exclusively on technical and procedural matters and had never examined whether the applicants were entitled to accommodation of their dietary beliefs. The Court found that the failure to examine the substance of the applicants’ serious and arguable claims, or to strike a fair balance between their interests and those of the State, amounted to a violation of Article 9.
The Court also found a violation of Article 13, which guarantees the right to an effective remedy. The applicants’ complaints had never been examined on their merits because the authorities had failed to issue formal decisions capable of being appealed.
The Court considered this approach excessively formalistic, finding that it had effectively prevented the applicants from obtaining judicial consideration of their complaints. As a result, the domestic remedies available to the applicants had not been effective in practice.
The Court held that the applicants’ vegan beliefs were protected under Article 9 of the Convention and that Switzerland had failed to properly assess their requests for vegan diets while they were in the care of the State. The failure to provide an effective legal avenue through which those complaints could be examined also violated Article 13.
The judgment establishes that sincerely held veganism can constitute a protected belief under the Convention, requiring State authorities to give serious consideration to dietary requests arising from such beliefs, particularly where individuals are deprived of their liberty.
Click here to read the judgment. Click here to read the Press Release issued by the Registrar of the Court.