ss.; ID., Parità di trattamento e organizzazioni di tendenza religiose nel «nuovo» diritto

85 Rivista telematica (www.statoechiese.it), n. 39 del 2017 ISSN 1971- 8543

Maria d'Arienzo

(Professor of Confessional Rights at the University Federico II of Naples, School of Law)

The Meaning of ‘Religion’

in the French Cour de cassation Jurisprudence *

SUMMARY: 1. Law and Religion in French Legislation. Terminological Issues - 2. Civil Insignificance of Confessional Statutory Regulations - 3. Religious Freedom and Contractual Relationships - 4. The Expression of Religious Convictions in the workplace

1 - Law and Religion in French legislation. Terminological Issues

The pronouncements of the Civil Court of Cassation are the perspective that I have chosen for the analysis of the meaning of ‘religion’ in French law. This choice has been determined by the greater variety of civil litigation stances in comparison to those pertaining to penal law. Such a variety allows for a more complex analysis of the interpretative method with which the judge, in identifying criteria for the application of juridical rules, establishes the jurisprudential hermeneutics concerning the amplitude and the limits of religious freedom rights. Furthermore, the balancing of rights in actual court cases is taken into account.

As in all interpretation processes, the juridical definition of “religious facts” in sociological terms235_{, meets with limitations based both on the} vagueness and on the terminological variety used in legal texts236_{. The Act} of Separation of the Churches and the State of 1905 established the main restrictions that define the juridical analysis method: respect for freedom of conscience (art. 1)237 _{and the neutrality of the State (art. 2)}238_.

*A quite similar Italian version has been published in Diritto e Religioni, 23, 1-2017, pp. 112-123.

235 _{É. DURKHEIM, De la définition des phénomènes religieux, in L’année sociologique, 1898,} pp. 1-28.

236 _{On the matter concerning a juridical definition of religion, starting from} terminological varieties in the French normative texts, see F. MESSNER, P. H. PRÉLOT,

J.M. WOEHRLING, Traité de droit français des religions, Litec, Paris, 2th _{ed., 2013, p. 33 ss.}

237 _{“La République assure la liberté de conscience. Elle garantit le libre exercice des}

cultes sous les seules restrictions édictées ci-après dans l’intérêt de l’ordre public”. 238 _{“La République ne reconnaît, ne salarie ni ne subventionne aucun culte”.}

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The preamble to the French Constitution of 1946 enshrines the principle of non-discrimination for reasons of sex, origin and religion239_. This principle is confirmed in the First Article of the Constitution of 1958, which establishes the equality of all citizens before the law, and the respect of all religious beliefs240_.

Hence, the term religion in the Constitution indicates the dimension of everyone’s identity. The twofold standpoint which the juridical notion of religion is composed of is specified in the subsequent declaration contained in the Constitution which states that all beliefs, including convictions of conscience, are equally respected by the legal system.

On the one side, there is the criterion of the citizen’s affiliation to a range of values, doctrines and rituals typical of a religious community; on the other, priority is given to the conviction, belief, or creed, not necessarily religious, shaping the conscience of each individual241_.

The first aspect deriving from the juridical qualification assigned to the notion of religion is precisely the individual feature of value options. What is relevant for the French law is not the normative essence of religion. Its wider and more complex meaning is not acknowledged, but religion is viewed as a faith or a creed that is different from all other convictions,

239 _{“[…] le peuple français proclame à nouveau que tout être humain, sans distinction} de race, de religion ni de croyance, possède des droit inaliénables et sacrés. Il réaffirme solennellement les droits et les libertés de l’homme et du citoyen consacrés par la Déclaration de 1789 et les principes fondamentaux reconnus par les lois de la République”.

240 _{Constitution de la République Française du 4 octobre 1958, art. 1: “La France est une} République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale. Elle assure l’égalité devant la loi de tous les citoyens sans distinction d’origine, de race ou de religion. Elle respect toutes les croyances”. Freedom for all before the law with no distinction of [...] religion, and respect for all convictions allow to specify the concept of secularism as neutrality-separation, and the prohibition to discriminate in matters of religion, but also as a protection of the freedom of conscience not only limited to beliefs relating to religion and cult. See G. KOUBI, La

laïcité dans le texte de la Constitution, in Revue de Droit public et de la science politique en France et à l’étranger, 5, 1997, pp. 1301-1321 (especially p. 1309). In other terms, unlike the version

of 1946, in the Constitution of 1958 the term ’religion’ referred to the prohibition to discriminate appears, even though the protection of each and every conviction without specifications highlights that religious choices are on the same footing as those produced by agnostic, non-religious' or merely philosophical beliefs. On this point, see M.

d’ARIENZO, La religione della laicità nella Costituzione francese, in P. BECCHI, V. PACILLO, Sull’invocazione a Dio nella Costituzione federale e nelle Carte fondamentali europee, Eupress,

Lugano, 2013, p. 143.

241 _{Concerning the distinction in meaning of terms such as “creed”, “opinion” and} “thought” pertaining to religious matters, see C. MAGNI, Interpretazione del diritto italiano

sulle credenze di religione. Possibilità operative analitiche e strutture d’ordine delle scelte normative,

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philosophical creeds or opinions, as expressions of the freedom of thought242_.

Consequently, in legal decisions, the subjective prevails over the objective aspect, which stems from the collective standpoint. This conceptualization is reflected in the much more frequent use of the term “cult” which is used in the technical-legal sense as a synonym for “religion”, albeit with overlapping meanings243_{. Such usage betrays an underlying} guilty ideology. It considers religion only for its cultural and ritual features, as the exterior expressions affecting the social field, thus ratifying the distinction and the separation between the private and the public spheres244 of religious affiliations.

The terms “cult” and “cultual association” can be traced in the provisions of the Act of Separation of 1905, which states, “the French Republic does not recognize subsidies or funding for any worship”245_. Therefore, the term ‘cult’ is used to qualify religious institutional and communal forms of organization in legal terms246_{. More often, it is used to} specify the right to religious freedom247_.

242 _{Concerning the lack of the clear distinction in the French law between terms such as} opinion, convictions of conscience and religious faith.

243 _{Regarding the term “cult” in the French Law, see F. MESSNER, P.H. PRÉLOT, J.M.} WOEHRLING, Traité de droit français, cit., p. 6 ss. The over simplification of legal

vocabulary carried out by overcoming the distinction between Churches and other forms of religious organization by means of the only legal denomination of “cult” is ratified by

Loi du 18 germinal an X (8 avril 1802) relative à l'organisation des cultes.

244 _{See Droit des cultes, edited by X. Delsol, A. Garay, E. Tawil, Dalloz, Paris, 2005, p. 25.} 245 _{Loi du 9 décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des Églises et de l’État, cit., art. 2. A first} formula of separation between State and religious confessions was ratified by the Thermidorian Convention with the Constitution of the year III (1795), which stated in art. 354: “nul ne peut être empêché d’excercer, en se conformant aux lois, le culte qu’il a choisi. Nul ne peut être forcé de contribuer aux dépenses d’un culte. La République n’en salarie aucun”. See J. BAUBEROT, J.P. SCOT, C. DELACAMPAGNE, H. PEÑA-RUIZ, R.

RÉMOND, Faut-il réviser la loi de 1905?, Puf, Paris, 2005; É. POULAT, M. GELBARD, Scruter la loi de 1905: la République française et la religion, Fayard, Paris, 2010. On the

distinction between the idea not to subsidize any affiliation and the idea of secularism, see