A unanimous ruling in the UK Supreme Court concluded that Northern Ireland’s exclusively Christian Religious Education (RE) and mandatory collective worship amount to “indoctrination” and therefore constitutes a breach of human rights law.
The case, known as JR87, began when a non-religious father and his child challenged the curriculum, arguing it was not objective, critical, or pluralistic. A 2022 High Court judgment agreed, but the Court of Appeal later overturned it, claiming the lack of pluralism did not constitute indoctrination and that withdrawal from RE was not stigmatizing.
The Supreme Court has now reversed that decision, finding that a non-objective curriculum and indoctrination are “two sides of the same coin” and that withdrawal does create stigma. The ruling requires RE to be taught in an objective and pluralistic way, rather than focusing almost entirely on Christianity. It also raises wider questions about the UK’s longstanding requirement for mandatory Christian collective worship.
You can read more about the case here:
Supreme Court rules exclusively Christian RE in NI is ‘indoctrination’ – Humanists UK