The paper aims to present a doctrinal assessment of the ECJC case-law on the freedom to manifest one’s religious affiliation on the workplace to show internal inconsistencies among four judgments (namely Bougnaoui v. Micropole, Achbita v. G4S Secure Solution, Vera Egenberger v. Evangeli-sches Werk für Diakonie und Entwicklunge V, IR vs. JQ) and between them and the ECtHR case law as well as fallacies in the Court legal reasoning. The analysis intends also to bring to light how both the ECJC and the ECtHR accepted a specific idea of neutrality which is in stark contrast with the very reason of the European anti-discrimination law so embarking on a dangerous path. The paper also intends to contribute to the debate concerning the potential space allegedly opened by those judgments to reasonable accommodation of believers at the workplace.

More diverse and more militant nonreligious groups are contributing to change the socio-cultural landscape of a growing number of constitutional democracies. Many of these groups and their various components (hard and soft atheists, agnostics, rationalists, humanists, secularists) are claiming to enjoy the protection of religious freedom, while straightforwardly denouncing the legal tendencies that give traditional confessions distinct privileges against generally applicable laws. This also raises several questions about when, where, and how groups of atheists should engage with religious issues and the legal degree to which such engagement becomes ‘religion-like’. On the other hand, this is even more evident in legal contexts where the model for managing the State-religions relationship and even freedom of religion are characterized by overt or implicit endorsements towards traditional confessions that, as such, enjoy special protected legal status. One of the most preeminent examples of that is given by the Italian association of atheists (also known as UAAR), who in the last years have launched judicial review proceedings against what they considered the Italian limited secularism. In this manner, nowadays Italian atheism is helping to shed light on the contradictions of the biased pro-religion interpretations of some important constitutional rules, including those related to the supreme principle of secularism.

Conference Presentation Draft "Regulating Religion - Normativity and Change at the Intersection of Law and Religion", National University of Singapore, December 14th, 2015.

“Religious freedom” has many different meanings, and its social perceptions vary depending on different factors, including different understandings of the role of religion in society. In this paper, we contribute to the analysis of the intersections between the institutional definitions and the social perceptions by comparatively analyzing the practices and discourses on religious freedom in the fields of healthcare and school canteens through regional and municipal case studies in Italy. Results allow exploring the role of individual actors and local and sectoral cultures in enforcing specific practices in the broad area of “religious freedom”.

Reasonable accommodations, a concept first introduced in the United States in the context of religious employment discrimination, is an established right for persons with disabilities under both international and EU law. The question whether to extend a similar right for reasons of religion or belief has generated much debate and controversy in a number of Member States. Some scholars have questioned the appropriateness and feasibility of strengthening religious rights in the European context in light of various cases involving “clashing rights” scenarios. Yet, in light of the existing primary legal instruments aiming to protect and include employees from increasingly diverse religious backgrounds in the European workplace, the concept of reasonable accommodations has various merits. This article discusses this “added value” by comparing a right to reasonable accommodations to the legal tools of human rights and EU non-discrimination law, and it considers the perspective offered by “deep equality” scholars in Canada, who argue for moving beyond accommodation.