Showing posts with label Greece. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Greece. Show all posts

Friday, February 16, 2024

Greek Parliament Approves Same-Sex Marriage

The Guardian reports that Greece's Parliament on Thursday, by a vote of 176- 76, legalized same-sex marriage, making Greece the first Christian Orthodox country to do so. The bill has been strongly supported by Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. However, in a provision criticized by LGBT advocacy organizations, the bill denies same-sex couples access to parenthood through surrogacy. The entire bill was strongly opposed by the Orthodox Church, According to The Guardian:

Orthodox bishops had threatened to excommunicate lawmakers who voted for the measure while the leader of the far-right Spartans party had said the law would “open the gates to hell and perversion”.

Friday, November 05, 2021

Greek Top Court Bans Kosher and Halal Slaughter

Last week, Greece's highest administrative court-- the Hellenic Council of State-- in a ruling essentially banned kosher and Halal slaughter of animals in Greece. As reported by Israel Hayom:

The ruling saw the court revoke the standing slaughter permit, which was provided through a ministerial decision that exempted ritual Jewish and Muslim slaughter practices from the general requirement to stun animals prior to killing them.

The ruling further called on Greek lawmakers to devise a way to meet the demands of animal rights advocates and the needs of Jews and Muslims who follow the laws about food in their traditions.

According to the Jerusalem Post:

The reason the court gave for the law being balanced is that it allows for “reversible stunning.”

The court said the law limits one specific aspect of the ritual act of slaughter, not the act of slaughter itself; as such, it does not count as interference with religious practice.

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

European Court Says Greece Should Not Have Indicated Non-Christening On Birth Record

In Stavropoulos and others v. Greece, (ECHR, June 25, 2020), the European Court of Human Rights, in a Chamber Judgment, held that Greece violated the religious freedom rights of parents when when their child's first name was entered into the birth record with an abbreviation in brackets next to it indicating that the parents had not christened the child.  The court, finding a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, said in part:
[T]he Court shares the applicants’ view that the note “naming” next to the third applicant’s first name carries a connotation, namely that she was not christened and that her name was given by the civil act of naming. That conclusion is further reinforced by the section concerning christening that is included in the birth registration act which ... has been left blank. Such information appearing in a public document issued by the State constitutes an interference with the right of all of the applicants not to be obliged to manifest their beliefs, which is inherent in the notion of freedom of religion and conscience as protected by Article 9 of the Convention. That is because it implies that the first and second applicants, as the parents and legal guardians of the third applicant, chose not to have the third applicant christened.
The court awarded damages of €10,000, plus costs, to petitioners.

Tuesday, November 05, 2019

European Court Criticizes Greece's Procedure For Exemptions From Compulsory Religion Courses

In Papageorgiou and Others v. Greece, (ECHR, Oct. 31, 2019), the European Court of Human Rights in a chamber judgment held that Greece's system of exemptions of children from compulsory religious education classes in public schools violates freedom of education provisions and freedom of thought conscience and religion protected by the European Convention on Human Rights and Protocol Number 1 to the Convention.  Children who are not Orthodox Christians may be excused from the course. The court said in part:
the current system of exemption of children from the religious education course is capable of placing an undue burden on parents with a risk of exposure of sensitive aspects of their private life and that the potential for conflict is likely to deter them from making such a request, especially if they live in a small and religiously compact society, as is the case with the islands of Sifnos and Milos, where the risk of stigmatisation is much higher than in big cities. The applicant parents asserted that they were actually deterred from making such a request not only for fear of revealing that they were not Orthodox Christians in an environment in which the great majority of the population owe allegiance to one particular religion..., but also because, as they pointed out, there was no other course offered to exempted students and they were made to lose school hours just for their declared beliefs.
The Court also issued a Press Release summarizing the decision.

Monday, September 16, 2019

European Court Says Marriage Annulment By Greek Court Violates Couple's Rights

In Theodorou and Tsotsorou v. Greece, (ECHR, Sept. 5, 2019) [decision in French], the European court of Human rights held that Greece violated Art. 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Right to Marry) when it annulled the marriage of applicants under a law interpreted as barring the marriage of a man to the sister of his former wife.  A Greek court annulled the ten-year marriage of the couple on the petition of the husband's first wife who he had divorced. Greek law bars marriage of individuals related by collateral descent up to the third degree. As summarized by the court's English language press release:
[W]ith regard to the Government’s arguments concerning “biological considerations” and the risk of confusion, the Court noted that those problems did not arise in the present case. It was not clear what exactly those biological considerations involved, or the practical risk of confusion preventing the applicants’ marriage, given that they were not blood relatives and had not had children together. Furthermore, with regard to the Government’s argument that there existed a social need for communication between the members of a family and the outside world, the Court observed that the Government had not specified how the prohibition in question could assist in or serve such communication.

Friday, December 21, 2018

European Court:Says Greece Should Not Have Applied Sharia Law In Will Contest

In Molla Sali v. Greece, (ECHR, Dec. 19, 2018), the European Court of Human Rights in a Grand Chamber judgment held that Greece had violated Art. 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights which bans discrimination on the basis of religion when it insisted that Sharia law be applied to a wife's inheritance rights. As summarized in part by a press release issued by the Court:
On the death of her husband, Ms Molla Sali inherited her husband’s whole estate under a will drawn up by her husband before a notary. Subsequently, the deceased’s two sisters challenged the validity of the will, arguing that their brother had belonged to the Thrace Muslim community and that any question relating to inheritance in that community was subject to Islamic law and the jurisdiction of the “mufti” and not to the provisions of the Greek Civil Code. They relied, in particular, on the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres and the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which provided for the application of Muslim customs and Islamic religious law to Greek nationals of Muslim faith....
Owing to the application of Muslim inheritance law to her husband’s estate – which law in Greece applied specifically to Greeks of Muslim faith – Ms Molla Sali had been deprived of the benefit of the will drawn up in accordance with the Civil Code by her husband, and had therefore been deprived of three-quarters of the inheritance. The fact is that if her husband, the testator, had not been of Muslim faith, Ms Molla Sali would have inherited the whole estate. As the beneficiary of a will drawn up under the Civil Code by a testator of Muslim faith, Ms Molla Sali had therefore been in a situation comparable to that of a beneficiary of a will established under the Civil Code by a testator who was not of Muslim faith, but she had been treated differently on the grounds of the testator’s religion.

Friday, November 09, 2018

Preliminary Agreement Reached For Church of Greece Clergy To Lose Civil Servant Status

Reuters reports that in Greece on Tuesday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Archbishop Ieronymos of the Church of Greece reached a preliminary agreement to end the civil servant status of priests and auxiliary staff. Some 10,000 members of the clergy will no longer be paid directly by the government. Instead the government will annually transfer a subsidy to a special church fund for the payment of salaries. The agreement also contemplates settlement of a long-standing property dispute between the church and the Greek government. The agreement, which creates a brighter line between church and state, must still be approved by the cabinet, parliament and church leaders. [Thanks to Scott Mange for the lead.]

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

European Court: Greece Violated Rights of Conscientious Objector

In Papavasilakis v. Greece, (ECHR, Sept. 15, 2016) [full text in French], the European Court of Human Rights in a Chamber Judgment found that a Jehovah's Witness' freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Art. 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights) were infringed by procedures used in Greece to consider his application to perform alternative civilian service instead of military service. As summarized by the Court's English-language press release:
Domestic law provided that the Special Board, when it examined applications for exemption from military service for conscientious objectors, had to be composed of two university professors, one senior or other advisor at the State Legal Council and two high-ranking army officers. Accordingly, if at the time it interviewed Mr Papavasilakis the Special Board had sat with all of its members present, the majority would have been civilians. However, only the two officers and the chairman were present on that day. In the Court’s view Mr Papavasilakis could thus have legitimately feared that, not being a member of a religious community, he would not succeed in conveying his ideological beliefs to career officers with senior positions in the military hierarchy.
A Chamber Judgment may be appealed to the Grand Chamber.