Meeting the Challenge: Redefining Europe's Classical Model for State Intervention in Religious Practices

Abstract

This article challenges the affirmation that the State has an increasing obligation to interfere in religious practices in order to establish harmony between these practices and human rights. Using the phenomenon of religious divorce as a case, it is argued that State intervention is largely unnecessary, may well be fruitless and might even prove counter-productive. However, as it is not in society's interest to host huge discrepancies between human rights and religious practices, the article aims to find new ways for achieving greater harmony. We suggest a more complex version of the traditional European model for State intervention in religious affairs. In this model, the principle of legally limited State intervention blends with the State's primarily non-legal support of religious communities and individuals in their attempts to decrease discrepancies between human rights and religious practices.