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After nearly a century, children’s and parents’ freedom of belief in education finally came before the highest UK court in a significant case about religious education (RE) in Northern Ireland (NI) – though with implications for the other home nations of England, Scotland and Wales. The case, known simply as in order to protect the family’s anonymity, was brought by parents against their local controlled, primary school, and against the Department of Education in NI. Controlled schools represent nearly half of NI’s schools; state-funded, they seek to . The parents, however, thought that RE was too confessional in lessons, assemblies and generally around the school, and although there was a right of withdrawal, this was too onerous for the child and parents.

‘The parents [of JR87] thought that RE was too confessional in lessons, assemblies and generally around the school, and although there was a right of withdrawal, this was too onerous for the child and parents.’

RE in controlled schools in NI is essentially set by the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986, which provided that RE be ‘undenominational … that is to say, education based upon the Holy Scriptures according to some authoritative version or versions thereof but excluding education as to any tenet distinctive of any particular religious denomination and the collective worship required by paragraph (1) in any such school shall not be distinctive of any particular religious denomination’ (Article 21(2)). This wording sought ecumenical agreement among various churches, though as Catholic education was separate, it was essentially serving different Protestant congregations. In 1986, other religions and non-religions did not feature, though in England and Wales other religions were recognised in 1988, in the Education Reform Act. The NI context was clearly different.

The family argued that this RE was a breach of Article 9 of the (Freedom of religion/belief), and Article 2 of Protocol 1, on the right to education, which provides parents with the right to raise their children in their own beliefs, and not to have other beliefs imposed upon them by the authorities. These in UK law (England & Wales specifically) in the 1830s and extended across the other nations.     

The Supreme Court decided in the family’s favour – thereby agreeing with the initial judge and reversing the Court of Appeal’s decision, which had rejected their case. It is significant for four reasons.

First, while it is not hugely surprising that RE from the 1980s is Christian in focus, the Court paid attention to other European cases on the burden that it would put on the family: no clear alternative provision; risk of bullying in schools; risk of social ostracism; having to divulge their beliefs. Having a right of withdrawal was not enough here, and RE should really be ‘objective, critical and pluralistic’ as another decision had found.

Second, the school’s culture was also important here, and ‘in the absence of any religious exposure at home, [the] daughter now believes that God made the world, and she repeats and practices a prayer/grace that she was taught at school at snack-time’. RE was therefore given a wide interpretation, not simply covering the lessons. This problem had emerged as needing a legal solution over a century ago, in the Endowed Schools’ Act 1869, which had prohibited teachers of other subjects from with pupils who had opted out of RE.  

Third, more broadly across UK, the case forms part of a trio of cases on similar issues (with ) and ) – both in England), on . While clearly different laws apply across the four nations, and there are different provisions for RE in faith schools across them, they collectively illustrate how this has become a matter for the courts, termed ‘juridification’, so that policymakers must pay attention to these decisions and the European Court’s judgments on which they are based, but also any statutes or policies run the risk of being brought before a court in the future – litigation is part of the process of grievance and critique, see for instance the ruling in on NI’s RAISE programme’s funding allocation for schools. As a result, new policies in NI – but also in Wales and Scotland, or in England where the has suggested putting RE in the national curriculum – are potentially open to the scrutiny of judges.

And fourth, it sits within conflicting international trends. It echoes the European legal position that a technical right to withdrawal is insufficient, and more needs to be provided for those who opt out – typically non-religious families, such as the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments in Norway (), Poland () and Greece (). Nonetheless, even such provision may be insufficient; in 2015, a Belgian Supreme Court decision supported parents who opted out of Catholic RE, but objected to the opt-out provisions and wanted to opt out of them too (see Franken & Sagesser, 2025). By contrast, the US courts and states have started to support some forms of Christian religiosity in schools – see for instance the ruling on prayers and Biblical texts in . It will be interesting to see how these contrasting global developments unfold. 

References

Franken, L., & Sägesser, C. (2025). Similar rights, different paths: The organisation of RE in the Flemish and French communities in Belgium. Journal of Beliefs & Values, 46(3), 469–487.