Munby J gave judgment last Thursday in the Administrative Court in a fascinating case about whether the admissions policy of the Jewish Free School is lawful – the complaint coming from the parents of a boy who was refused admission on the grounds that he’s not, technically, Jewish according to the orthodox way of looking at it. His mother is a convert to Reform Judaism.
The claim lost, except on the technical grounds that the JFS failed to have regard, in coming to its decision, to the need to promote equality. A declaration was the only remedy given.
Munby has nailed this one firmly down the narrow subject of public law on admissions procedures in faith schools, but do you think:
a) It could be used by the Catholic adoption agencies to argue that public law accepts the trumping of civil law by religious law in some areas, even when receiving public funding?
and
b) whether it have been worth a pitch that the matrilineal criterion in Judaism runs contrary to modern sex discrimination in that it disregarded the qualification of male parents, no matter how Jewish they are? After all, he said at 108:
“However, it is important to realise that reliance upon religious belief, however conscientious the belief and however ancient and respectable the religion, can never of itself immunise the believer from the reach of the secular law. And invocation of religious belief does not necessarily provide a defence to what is otherwise a valid claim. Some cultural beliefs and practices are simply treated by the law as being beyond the pale.”
Can’t help wondering that if a school were saying ‘we only care about your dad’s religious status, as we don’t regard women as qualified for this purpose’, then somebody would have been raised the issue of sex discrimination.