Latvia’s special religious rights face constitutional challenge

Jehovah’s Witnesses have asked Latvia’s Constitutional Court to review why some religious organizations have special rights and others do not, LSM reports. They also argue that the law sets no procedure for religious groups to apply for those rights.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ congregation association filed its application last year. It says the current system may conflict with constitutional guarantees of equality before the law, non-discrimination, and freedom of religion and conscience.

The Justice Ministry, which develops policy on relations between the state and religious organizations, has told the group that the existing arrangements are not a benchmark for rights that all religious organizations should receive. The ministry describes them instead as evidence of special cooperation with certain communities.

LSM says seven organizations had special rights until November last year, but the article’s list names eight: the Roman Catholic Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia, the Latvian Orthodox Church, the Latvian Baptist Union, the United Methodist Church in Latvia, the Latvian Old Believers’ Pomor Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Latvia, and the Riga Jewish Religious Congregation. Each has a separate law regulating its activities.

This year, Dievturi, a religious group, also gained the right to solemnize marriages and its own separate law. The number of marriages conducted in religious communities has fallen by almost half over the past decade, LSM reports.

Freedom of religion and conscience is a fundamental principle of a democratic state and is enshrined in Latvia’s Constitution. The rules governing relations between the state and religious organizations have changed several times over more than 30 years.