Constitutional Court, judgment no. 423/87, 27.10.1987

CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW | TEACHING OF CATHOLIC RELIGION AND MORALS | PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY | STATE NEUTRALITY

 

 

        Constitutional Court, judgment no. 423/87, 27.10.1987  

 

JURISDICTION: Constitutional

CASE: 110/83

SUBJECT: Constitutional review

RAPPORTEUR: Monteiro Dinis

RULING: Declares, with general binding force, the unconstitutionality of the norms in Article 2(1) of Decree-Law no. 323/83, of 5 July 1983, to the extent that it requires an express statement from those who do not wish their children to attend classes of Catholic Religion and Morals, and in Article 2(2) and (3), as they are a mere consequence of the previous paragraph; does not declare the unconstitutionality of the norms in Articles 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the same Decree-Law.

DOMESTIC LAW:

1976 Constitution [Articles 13, 16, 41, 43, 67(2)(c), 168(1)(b), 281(1)(a), 290(c)]

Law no. 28/82, of 15 November 1982 [Article 51(1)]

Law no. 46/86, of 14 October 1986 [Article 47(3)]

Law no. 4/71, of 21 August 1971 (Ground rules on religious freedom)

1882 Constitution (Article 25)

1826 Constitutional Charter [Article 145(4)]

1838 Constitution

1911 Constitution (Articles 3, 4)

1911 Constitution (Articles 3, 4)

Law of Separation between Church and State, of 20 April 1911 (Articles 2, 3)

Law no. 1910, of 23 May 1935

Decree-Law no. 36508, of 17 September 1947 [Article 343(2)]

Law no. 2048, of 11 June 1951

Law no. 5/73, of 25 July 1973

Law no. 65/79, of 4 October 1979

Ordinance no. 21490, of 25 August 1965

Ordinance no. 1077/80, of 18 December 1980

Ordinance no. 333/86, of 2 July 1986

Revolutionary Council Resolution no. 96/82

Constitutional Commission Opinion no. 17/82

INTERNATIONAL LAW:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

Concordat between the Holy See and the Portuguese Republic, of 7 May 1940

Additional Protocol to the Concordat between the Holy See and the Portuguese Republic, of 15 February 1975

Concordat between the Holy See and the Italian Republic (Lateran Pacts), of 11 February 1929 (amended 18 February 1984)

FOREIGN LAW:

United States Constitution, First Amendment (1791)

Italian Constitution (1946)

US Supreme Court judgment McCollum v. Board of Education (1948)

US Supreme Court judgment Zorach v. Clauson (1952)

KEYWORDS: Teaching of Catholic Religion and Morals; concordatary provision; Catholic population; religion; religious freedom; churches; religious communities; Concordat; principle of equality; freedom of conscience, religion and worship; non confessional character of public education; State laicity; Portuguese Catholic Church; episcopate; ecclesiastic authority; equalitarian; teaching neutrality; religious teaching; discrimination; ethical foundation; Christianity; moral foundation; unequal; differentiation; diverse representativeness; religious confessions; Catholic roots; intolerance; religious unity; political and moral unity of the Nation; purity of the faith; private worship; public worship; public morals; protestant churches; principle of separation between Church and State; Roman Apostolic Catholic religion; State’s official religion; religious motives; religious practices and beliefs; Padroado; religious worship; Christian doctrine and morals; national community; traditional religion of the Portuguese Nation; religious entities; social, cultural and legal reality; Catholic faith; believers of other faiths; social, cultural and legal fact; concordatary system; concordatary fact; social and cultural fabric of the Portuguese people; traditions; collective memory; religious tradition; peoples’ cultural tradition; sociological structure; laic State; confessional State; God; religious bodies; atheist; atheism; confessionalism; religious phenomenon; religious position; chaplains; religious institutions; separatism; religious matters; Jewish; religious doctrines; religious classes; religious instruction; most deep beliefs; priests; religious culture; Catholic indoctrination; moral and religious sciences; freedom of organisation and independence of churches and religious communities; laic school; confessional teaching; special historical and cultural framework of Portuguese society; free interplay of social spontaneity; State’s religious neutrality; free development of conscience; social demand; radical indifference; social phenomenon; socially legitimate values and interests; right to religion; negative freedom of religion; diversified treatment; historical and sociological reality

COMMENTS:

1. This is the first ruling by the Constitutional Court on the issue of religious education in public schools. It reviewed the constitutionality of Decree-Law no. 323/83, of 5 July 1983, at the request of the President of the Republic, who feared a possible breach of Articles 13(2) and 41(1) and (4) of the 1976 Constitution. The Constitutional Court reviewed the Decree-Law not only from the perspective of a possible material unconstitutionality, but also from the perspective of a possible formal unconstitutionality, since Decree-Law no. 323/83 had been “adopted by the Government without the benefit of parliamentary credentials”. The Court declared the formal and material unconstitutionality of Article 2 of Decree-Law no. 323/83, to the extent that it required an express statement from those who did not wish their children to attend classes of Catholic Religion and Morals, on the grounds that it breached Article 168(1)(b) and Article 41(1) and (3) of the Constitution. Article 2 of Decree-Law no. 323/83 read as follows: “1. In light of the special representativeness of the Catholic population in the country, Catholic Religion and Morals shall be taught in public primary, preparatory and secondary schools to students whose parents, or those who act as such, do not expressly declare their wish to the contrary. 2. Students over 16 years of age are entitled to make the declaration referred to in paragraph 1. 3. The declaration referred to in the previous paragraphs shall be made at the time of registration; to that effect, the registration form shall include what is necessary to ensure that the expression of will is unequivocal”. According to the Court, the formal unconstitutionality stems from the fact that paragraph 1, by requiring an express declaration from the parents, introduced a “legislative novelty” vis-à-vis the previous regime set by the Concordat and by Law no. 4/71 (which foresaw an “exemption request”), and from the fact that this worked restrictively in an area – rights, liberties and guarantees – belonging to the Parliament’s legislative competence. “There is a significant difference between an exemption request, which presupposes the existence of an obligation, where the duty to comply may be waived following a request, and the mere expression of will, through a declaration involving the exercise of a right. The innovative and restrictive content thereby introduced in the area of rights, freedoms and guarantees, without the Parliament’s permission, cannot help but originate a formal unconstitutionality for breach of Article 168(1)(b) of the Constitution” [italic in the original]. The material unconstitutionality derives from the fact that paragraph 1 collides with the principle of religious freedom, understood as including the “right to stay silent about the choice of religion, keeping it safe as a private matter”, since it forces the parents to externalise an expression of will in order to avoid that their children attend classes of Catholic Religion and Morals. The constitutional provisions breeched are those of Article 41(1) – “freedom of conscience, religion and worship is unbreachable” – and Article 41(3) – “No one shall be asked by any authority about his or her convictions or religious practice, [nor] be hindered for refusing to answer”.

 

2. The Court decided not to declare the unconstitutionality of the remaining provisions of Decree-Law no. 323/83, where it was prescribed that: (a) the State ensures the teaching of “religious and moral sciences” in its schools (Article 1); (b) Catholic Religion and Morals is part of the regular school curriculum in public schools and is subject to the rules applicable to the other courses, including for evaluation purposes, although it may not hinder the transition to the next school level (Article 3); (c) the Catholic Church is sole responsible for setting the teaching guidelines for Catholic Religion and Morals (Article 4); (d) the teachers of Catholic Religion and Morals are hired or appointed upon proposal by the competent ecclesiastic authority, but they are part of the faculty of the educational institutions where they render their services and enjoy the rights and obligations inherent to their teaching functions (Article 5). According to the Court, these provisions were not formally unconstitutional since they had not set “a legal framework different from the one already in existence”, but merely replicated, with minor changes, what “was in previous legal texts enacted by the competent sovereign powers”, Law no. 4/71 and the 1940 Concordat. As for the possible material unconstitutionality, the Court held that there was no breach of the principles of separation of Church and State, non-confessional character of public education and equality. First of all, because “the separation and non-confessional character require religious neutrality on the part of the State, but not that the State be ignorant of the religious fact as a social fact. The State is not alien to society’s values and interests, instead it is an instrument at their service, taking on the obligation to ensure the training and free development of consciences (Catholic or atheist), in line with social demand”. The Court noted that the Constitution forbids the religious guidance of public education, but does not forbid the State from offering the different churches, in equal conditions, the possibility of teaching their respective religions in public schools. What is required is that the religious teaching must be administered at the public school but not by the public school, which the Court believes to be the case with the provisions under review. “We believe that the predominant and truly defining trait of the teaching thereby framed points to its confessional nature, i.e. it is a teaching administered at school by a religious confession, and not a teaching at school and by the school” [italics in the original]. In the Court’s view, this conclusion is not hindered by the fact that the Catholic Religion and Morals course is part of the school curriculum, since this is only meant to show that the course is to be taken seriously, nor by the fact that the teachers are hired and payed by the State, since the payment is a form of “subsidy to a religious confession, even though of a different nature”, and the hiring is dependent upon a proposal by the competent ecclesiastic authority. As for a possible breach of the principle of equality, the Court acknowledges that the Catholic Church enjoys “benefits and advantages not granted to any other religious confession”, but finds that this is justified in view of the country’s sociological reality and the international obligations taken on by the Portuguese State. “The diverse treatment enjoyed by the Catholic Church, a result of the sociological and historical reality in which it is placed, is not likely to lead, in view of this reality, to a declaration of unconstitutionality of any of the provisions for breach of Article 13 of the Constitution, since the State legislated in this way to meet its obligations”. The Court notes that the State “cannot abstain” from granting a similar treatment to the other religious confessions, having due regard to “the particular circumstances of each of them (size, geographical presence, dissemination among student population, etc.)”, but adds that the review of a possible unconstitutionality by omission must take place in a separate procedure.

 

3. It is interesting to see how religious diversity is simultaneously acknowledged and minimised by the Court. “Although the overwhelming majority of the Portuguese population who shares religious convictions belongs to the Catholic religion, it is true that there are others, some even with many thousands of believers”. Here the Court seems to be more attuned to the reality of religious diversity in Portuguese society than the Constitutional Commission had shown to be, five years earlier, in its Opinion no. 17/82 (on Decree no. 338-G/82), where religious diversity appears as almost a mere academic possibility. The Opinion, as cited by the Constitutional Court, read as follows: “presently, the large majority of the Portuguese are, at least, attracted by the ethical foundation of Christianity and wish that that moral foundation continues to be taught to their children. The social demand for teaching of Catholic religion and morals in public schools is in fact preponderant. By satisfying it, the State is only treating unequally what is unequal. In any case, in practical terms, we do not see the possibility of the State benefiting in a similar or approximate manner the believers of other religious confessions, in scarcely significant numbers, and whose expression at the level of each school will be null or very narrow. It would be absurd that for that reason alone the State should not be allowed to respond to the demand from the majority of the Portuguese population, of Catholic roots”. In spite of being more attentive than the Commission to the presence of other religious confessions in Portugal, the Court nevertheless treats Catholicism as the default religion when it reduces to the alternative “Catholic or atheist” the range of consciences which training and free development the State is bound to ensure. In the end, as noted earlier, it is the “social demand” argument – coupled with that of Portugal’s international commitments (themselves a result of that demand) – that is held to justify the differentiated treatment enjoyed by the Catholic Church.

 

4. The Court makes a detailed analysis of the content of the principle of separation between Church and State, starting by noting that the relations between the State and religious communities “are never entirely immune to the peoples’ cultural tradition and their sociological structure”, as confirmed by the Portuguese case. The Court refers to the classic opposition between laic State and confessional State, explaining it as the opposition between States that do not take a position on the question of whether God exists and States that take a position on this question. “The classic opposition as regards those models of relation is between the laic State and the confessional State, the position adopted by the State, as an entity distinct from the persons who make up the national community, on the question of the existence of God, being the most suited distinctive criterion. If the State, acting as if it was itself a citizen, takes sides on that question, it will be a confessional State; on the contrary, if the State inhibits itself from competing with the citizens in the adherence to or rejection of any religious confession, i.e., if it declares itself neutral on the subject, then it will be a laic State”. The Court notes that, although the dichotomies laic State/confessional State and separation/no-separation between Church and State tend to coincide, this coincidence is not necessary, since there are laic States which keep institutional ties with one or more churches and confessional states which keep only very tenuous unions with the churches, “very close to certain separation formulae”. The Court also notes that the States which take a position on the question of the existence of God – confessional States according to the earlier definition – do not necessarily have to answer in the affirmative; that is, the State may present itself as “atheist”, which, in the Court’s view, does not make it a laic State, but instead a confessional State “of opposite direction, since the adoption of atheism is a non neutral position vis-à-vis the religious phenomenon”. The Court also points out that the fact that a State is confessional “does not irremediably hinder its citizens’ freedom to choose their religious position”. In spite of acknowledging that the diversity of ways in which States engage with religious communities across the world make it difficult to use any given classification, the Court draws on the classification by Jacques Robert to distinguish laic States with clear separation [rigid (USA) or flexible (France)], laic States without clear separation, explicit or formal (Italy), and confessional States with complete union or identification (Israel, USSR), partial union (Italy before 1984) and tenuous union (Federal Republic of Germany). Before starting with the analysis of the Portuguese case, the Court looks at religious freedom in the USA (“a full laic State”) and Italy (“a State with a deep and long preponderance of the Catholic Church”). About the principle of separation of Church and State in the 1976 Portuguese Constitution, the Court stresses the differences vis-à-vis the 1933 Constitution, where the same principle appeared side by side with the reference to Catholic religion as the “traditional religion of the Portuguese Nation”. Although admitting that the 1976 Constitution may suggest a rigid separation scheme, the Court finds that what was intended was not a return to the regime instituted in 1911, with a “radical system of laic schools” and prohibition of “all religious teaching in public schools”. According to the Court, an understanding of the principle of separation between Church and State – and the corresponding non confessional character of public education – which led to the banishment of religious teaching in public schools “would result in a breach of the principle of religious freedom in its positive dimension”. In order to ensure the effective exercise of religious freedom, the State has the “duty to allow the different confessions to teach their respective religions, in public schools, to the students who explicitly express the wish to receive a religious education”.

 

5. The Court makes a detailed analysis of the content of the principle of separation between Church and State, starting by noting that the relations between the State and religious communities “are never entirely immune to the peoples’ cultural tradition and their sociological structure”, as confirmed by the Portuguese case. The Court refers to the classic opposition between laic State and confessional State, explaining it as the opposition between States that do not take a position on the question of whether God exists and States that take a position on this question. “The classic opposition as regards those models of relation is between the laic State and the confessional State, the position adopted by the State, as an entity distinct from the persons who make up the national community, on the question of the existence of God, being the most suited distinctive criterion. If the State, acting as if it was itself a citizen, takes sides on that question, it will be a confessional State; on the contrary, if the State inhibits itself from competing with the citizens in the adherence to or rejection of any religious confession, i.e., if it declares itself neutral on the subject, then it will be a laic State”. The Court notes that, although the dichotomies laic State/confessional State and separation/no-separation between Church and State tend to coincide, this coincidence is not necessary, since there are laic States which keep institutional ties with one or more churches and confessional states which keep only very tenuous unions with the churches, “very close to certain separation formulae”. The Court also notes that the States which take a position on the question of the existence of God – confessional States according to the earlier definition – do not necessarily have to answer in the affirmative; that is, the State may present itself as “atheist”, which, in the Court’s view, does not make it a laic State, but instead a confessional State “of opposite direction, since the adoption of atheism is a non neutral position vis-à-vis the religious phenomenon”. The Court also points out that the fact that a State is confessional “does not irremediably hinder its citizens’ freedom to choose their religious position”. In spite of acknowledging that the diversity of ways in which States engage with religious communities across the world make it difficult to use any given classification, the Court draws on the classification by Jacques Robert to distinguish laic States with clear separation [rigid (USA) or flexible (France)], laic States without clear separation, explicit or formal (Italy), and confessional States with complete union or identification (Israel, USSR), partial union (Italy before 1984) and tenuous union (Federal Republic of Germany). Before starting with the analysis of the Portuguese case, the Court looks at religious freedom in the USA (“a full laic State”) and Italy (“a State with a deep and long preponderance of the Catholic Church”). About the principle of separation of Church and State in the 1976 Portuguese Constitution, the Court stresses the differences vis-à-vis the 1933 Constitution, where the same principle appeared side by side with the reference to Catholic religion as the “traditional religion of the Portuguese Nation”. Although admitting that the 1976 Constitution may suggest a rigid separation scheme, the Court finds that what was intended was not a return to the regime instituted in 1911, with a “radical system of laic schools” and prohibition of “all religious teaching in public schools”. According to the Court, an understanding of the principle of separation between Church and State – and the corresponding non confessional character of public education – which led to the banishment of religious teaching in public schools “would result in a breach of the principle of religious freedom in its positive dimension”. In order to ensure the effective exercise of religious freedom, the State has the “duty to allow the different confessions to teach their respective religions, in public schools, to the students who explicitly express the wish to receive a religious education”.

 

6. The distinction between the positive and negative dimensions of religious freedom is key in the Court’s reasoning. The first requires the provision of religious education in public schools, while the second prevents the State from requiring an express declaration of the wish not to enrol in Catholic Religion and Morals. In its comments about the content of freedom of conscience, religion and worship, enshrined in Article 41 of the Constitution, the Court uses different expressions – “freedom of religion”, “right to religion”, “principle of religious freedom” – with slightly different meanings. The first explanation offered on the content of freedom of religion is that it consists of “the freedom to adopt or not a religion, to choose a given religion, to proselytise in one way or another, and to not be hindered as a result of a religious or anti-religious standing or attitude”. Further on, referring to the principle of religious freedom, the Court adds that it includes “the right to freely chose one’s confession or to refuse any confession and the right to stay silent about that choice, keeping it safe as a private matter”. On the positive dimension of religious freedom, the Court draws attention to the social situations in which this freedom is exercised and to the need to transform “freedom autonomy” into a “freedom situation” in which the State is bound, not only to remove obstacles, but also to provide conditions for its exercise. It is worth citing the full sequence: “the understanding of religious freedom with a mere formal content, understood as a sphere of autonomy vis-à-vis the State and reduced to the free interplay of social spontaneity, seems to be unsatisfying, for insufficient, to consciences nowadays. Because the actual dimension of freedom, of all freedoms and therefore also religious freedom, is fundamentally dependent on the social situations that allow or impede their existential enjoyment as real options, the question must be centred on transforming the concept of freedom autonomy into freedom situation, that is, in the positive meaning of freedom as concrete power to achieve certain goals that are its object, not only by removing obstacles preventing its exercise, but also through the positive provision of conditions and means indispensable to its fulfilment” [italics in the original]. Of course, the positive and negative components of religious freedom are intimately connected, “in particular at the level of State institutions and in the area of public school education”. In any case, the neutrality demanded from the State does not prevent it from creating “the adequate conditions to facilitate the exercise of religious freedom to the student population who, as part of a context translating a certain reality, cannot be ignored as a social phenomenon”. According to the Court, it is not a matter of “protecting or privileging any given religious confession, but to ensure the effective exercise of religious freedom, as a consequence of a situation and of social demand”. As for the “negative freedom of religion”, the Court considers that it will be breached anytime the State requires an act as indispensable condition for its enjoyment. The Court admits that the “right to religion” may be dependent on the practice of an act (such as an application or a declaration), but holds that the same is not applicable to the exercise of freedoms, since these include the freedom not to act, “and as far as these are concerned, it is entirely unacceptable to impose any material requirement that conditions its practice or exercise”.

 

7. This judgment divided the Constitutional Court. It was adopted by the collective of ten justices with nine partial dissenting opinions. Justices Messias Bento, Raul Mateus, José Manuel Cardoso da Costa and Armando Manuel Marques Guedes argued that there was no unconstitutionality in Decree-Law no. 323/83, whereas Justices Luís Nunes de Almeida, José Martins da Fonseca, Mário de Brito, José Magalhães Godinho and Vital Moreira argued that all provisions in Decree-Law no. 323/83 were unconstitutional for breach of the principles of separation between Church and State, non-confessional character of public education, religious freedom and/or equality. Several dissenting opinions criticise the Court’s finding that the lack of legislation granting a similar treatment to other religious communities amounted to an unconstitutionality by omission, having noted that the Constitution does order the State to legislate on the teaching of any religion in public schools (Luís Nunes de Almeida, Mário de Brito, Vital Moreira and Raul Mateus). There was also criticism of the fact that the Court relied on the Concordat provision pertaining to the teaching of Catholic religion when this provision is contrary to the 1976 Constitution and its principles (José Magalhães Godinho and Vital Moreira). Of the comments made with regard to the principle of equality, it is worth noting those made by Justices Luís Nunes de Almeida and Vital Moreira. The former’s opinion reads as follows: “it is not legitimate to hold that there is no breach on the grounds that the majority of the Portuguese population is Catholic. First of all, the majority rule is manifestly inapplicable to hinder the effects of the principle of equality, since the situations that this principle aims to safeguard, first and foremost, are precisely those unfavourable situations that, as a rule, affect minorities. Therefore, the simple statement that the majority of the population professes the Catholic religion is entirely irrelevant to the purported goal. Actually, such situation could never affect the obligation to provide religious education to other confessions, whenever there is a minimum number of students interested in that teaching at a given school. The principle of equality – by requiring equal treatment of that which is equal and unequal treatment of that which is unequal – would justify, for example, that where there were 300 students wishing to learn a given religion and 30 students wishing to learn another, the school should create ten classes for the teaching of the former and one class for the teaching of the latter. It certainly forbids the system established by Decree-Law no. 323/83, in which only one religious confession is allowed to teach its religion in public schools”. More receptive to the social representativeness argument, Vital Moreira notes, in any case: “It is certain that the principle of equality does not forbid, instead requires, differences in treatment for that which in itself is unequal. But that only means that each church will be entitled to a number of classes proportionate to the number of interested students, which naturally will consider the different «representativeness» of the different religions among the population with religious beliefs. What the principle of equality does not allow is the exclusive privilege in favour of a church with the exclusion of all others, when there is no material reason to require that monopoly. One thing is the proportion in which all shall have access to public school, another is to grant access only to one with the exclusion of all others. The argument according to which the Catholic Church is more representative could only justify its monopoly if it was materially impossible to grant the opportunity to provide religious teaching in public schools to more than one church. But it is obvious that there is no such impossibility. Nothing prevents the existence in the same school of classes of Catholic religion and classes of Evangelic, Muslim or any other religion. What matters is that there are students interested in studying it (at least a minimum number, valid for all religions) and that the respective churches take care of the classes. Above all, the State cannot qualitatively discriminate among the various churches. All confessions which doctrine and practice are not constitutionally illicit have equal constitutional dignity. It is not for the State to favour one church as opposed to others. No church can take advantage of the State’s power or favours to widen its influence” [italics and commas in the original].

 

8. In the literature, this judgment was explained as an, ultimately unsatisfactory, attempt at reconciling a “radical approach” and a “prudent approach” to the principles of separation, non-confessional education and equality of treatment [see VITALINO CANAS, “État et Églises au Portugal”, in in Gerhard Robbers (ed.), État et Églises dans l’Union Européenne, 2nd ed., Trier, Institute for European Constitutional Law, 2008, p. 486]. Jónatas Machado criticised the Court for having difficulties in fulfilling the constitutional imperatives of equal (individual and collective) religious freedom and of State religious neutrality. In his view, the progress made by the constitutional case law on this subject was timid and hesitant – instead of having a system of religious teaching in public schools consistent with the requirements of equal religious freedom and separation between Church and State, we had in practice slid to a system of selective religious tolerance, administered, funded and controlled by the State[see JONATAS EDUARDO MENDES MACHADO, Liberdade Religiosa numa Comunidade Constitucional Inclusiva: Dos Direitos da Verdade aos Direitos dos Cidadãos, Coimbra, Coimbra Editora, 1996, pp. 378-380]. Departing from a very different perspective, Paulo Pulido Adragão criticised the Court for seemingly incurring in a contradiction when it stated that the State should not ignore the religious fact as a constitutive fact of a certain social demand, while simultaneously holding that the State should keep a radical indifference for any religious assessment of the religious fact. According to Adragão, the Court was not able to solve the contradiction between a positive vision of religious freedom and the affirmation of religious neutrality as a constitutional principle. He suggests that the solution to the conflict may require a critical reconstruction of the State’s religious neutrality [see PAULO PULIDO ADRAGÃO A Liberdade Religiosa e o Estado, Coimbra, Almedina, 2002, pp. 443-444].

 

9. Many of the issues addressed in this judgment were reprised by the Court in its judgment no. 174/93, of 17 February 1993, which reviewed the constitutionality of several provisions in Ordinance no. 333/86, of 2 July 1986, and of the entirety of Ordinance no. 831/87, of 16 October 1987.

 

10. Decree-Law no. 323/83 stayed in force until 2013, when it was repealed by Decree-Law no. 70/2013, of 23 May 2013, which established the new legal regime for the course of Catholic Religious and Moral Education, to be taught at public education institutions under the dependency of the Ministry for Science and Education.

Patrícia Jerónimo

Cite as: JERÓNIMO, Patrícia, “[Annotation to the judgment of the] Constitutional Court no. 423/87, 27.10.1987”, 2020, available at https://inclusivecourts.pt/en/jurisprudencia2/

REFERENCES IN THE LITERATURE:

ADRAGÃO, Paulo Pulido, A Liberdade Religiosa e o Estado, Coimbra, Almedina, 2002.

ADRAGÃO, P.P., and GONÇALVES, D., “Educação religiosa nas escolas estatais”, in J.L. Martínez López-Muñiz et al. (eds.), Religious Education in Public Schools: Study of Comparative Law, Yearbook of the European Association for Education Law and Policy, vol. 6, Dordrecht, Springer, 2006.

CANAS, Vitalino, “État et Églises au Portugal”, in Gerhard Robbers (ed.), État et Églises dans l’Union Européenne, 2nd ed., Trier, Institute for European Constitutional Law, 2008, pp. 470-500.

CANOTILHO, J.J. Gomes, and MOREIRA, Vital, Constituição da República Portuguesa Anotada, vol. I, 4th ed. rev., Coimbra, Coimbra Editora, 2007.

FOLQUE, André, “Religion in public Portuguese education”, in Gerhard Robbers (ed.), Religion in Public Education, European Consortium for Church and State Research, 2011, pp. 399-424.

MACHADO, Jónatas Eduardo Mendes, Liberdade Religiosa numa Comunidade Constitucional Inclusiva: Dos Direitos da Verdade aos Direitos dos Cidadãos, Coimbra, Coimbra Editora, 1996.

MIRANDA, Jorge, “Estado, liberdade religiosa e laicidade”, Gaudium Sciendi, no. 4, 2013, pp. 20-48.

MIRANDA, Jorge, and MEDEIROS, Rui, Constituição Portuguesa Anotada, vol. I, 2nd ed., Coimbra, Coimbra Editora, 2010.

 

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