Weekly Human Rights News: 03/05/2024

This week we have continued our work with Tees Esk and Ware Valley NHS Trust, you can read more about our work withTEWV here. We deliver both parts of our Community focused human rights capacity building course with engaged and thoughtful staff who are really getting to grips with their role as human rights duty bearers. Some feedback from the session included: '83% of staff felt more positive about the HRA’ because of our workshops' with one member of staff saying they “felt more able to assert themselves as an OT, particular in care home settings and and needs that are not considered 'essential, such as access to outside space.”

The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal held that the current religious education curriculum does not breach human rights

Christian religious education and collective worship is mandatory in Northern Irish schools. Parents who identify as “broadly humanist” argued that this breaches the Article 2, Protocol 1 right to education when read together with the Article 9 right to freedom of thought. In 2022, a lower court found in their favour, saying these elements of the curriculum are not conveyed in an “objective, critical and pluralistic” manner.

However, the Department for Education appealed the judgment. On Tuesday 30th April, the Belfast Court of Appeal held that religious education and collective worship do not breach the right to education under the Human Rights Act. Although the Court of Appeal agreed that they were not conveyed in an “objective, critical and pluralistic” manner, it said the fact that the parents had the unqualified right to have their child excused from participation meant the right to education was not breached. 

Read the summary of the judgment here