The twentieth Annual Congress of the European Consortium for Church and State Research was held in Järvenpää in Finland, on the subject of Religion in Criminal Law. It was held at the Training College of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, hosted by and ceremonially opened by Matti Repo, Bishop of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland, Joni Hiitola from the Ministry of Education and Professor Sophie van Bijsterveld, President of the European Consortium.

The first session, on ‘Penal protection of religion’, was chaired by Professor Mark Hill, and opened with a period of silence in memory of Professor Alexis Pauly from Luxembourg, who had died in the week of the conference. Professor Hill stimulated discussion by posing several questions:

1. i. How large a subject is the modest interface between the two independent monoliths of religion on the one hand and the criminal law on the other?

2. ii. If the criminal law constitutes offences against the state, why should essentially private religions be protected in a plural or neutral society?

3. iii. Does the promotion of equal treatment and mutual respect (a legitimate objective) explain the demise of the crime of blasphemy and has it been replaced with crimes concerning incitement of religious hatred, which disturb social order?

4. iv. Since the majority of religions preach forgiveness, why do they want the state to punish offenders rather than engage with restorative justice?

5. v. What is the relationship between freedom of expression and freedom of religion?

Professor Rik Torfs noted that, formerly, criminal protection of religion was aimed at safeguarding the established or majority churches but now it has shifted towards the protection of smaller communities. Professor Silvio Ferrari endorsed this in the case of Italy and Professor Ivan Iban agreed, underlining that the criminal law used to be an expression of the morals of the society. Professor Marco Ventura showed a more concrete and contemporary example of a crossing point between religion and the criminal law, namely covert recording of confessions in Italy with the consent of the local bishop. Referring to this question, Dr Michał Rynkowski mentioned the practice of ‘church asylum’, in which the state police will not intervene in ecclesiastical premises, although there are no provisions of state law in this respect. Professor de Sousa e Brito underlined that blasphemy was first abolished in France in 1791, but it is still a crime in eastern departments of Alsace-Moselle (where a particular regime of ecclesiastical law is applied), which shows the lack of cohesion at the level of an individual state, not to mention Europe as whole.

Professor Silvio Ferrari chaired the second session, entitled ‘Criminal offences in the name of religion’. He focused on the extent to which we can accept pluralism in relation to crime and religion. Should honour killings be justified? How much criminal law should be applied within the religion (for instance, in the case of priestly obligations concerning confession)? Can we accept delegation of certain cases to non-state bodies, according to religious rules, and, if so, what are the limits of such tolerance? Answering these questions, Professor Torfs underlined that social cohesion is an important value and certain groups undermine the basic principle of society. In terms of voluntary arbitration, how free are members of Muslim communities to accept or reject the jurisdiction of such arbitration? Professor Eva Brems agreed that constitutional values must be respected and that the reliability of religious courts in certain areas – for example, in cases of violence in the family – is very limited. Professor Francis Messner identified a fundamental difference in this respect because the Italian state has confidence in churches in general, which is not true for the French case. Professor Axel von Campenhausen drew even more general conclusions: the state used to know its churches and religious communities 15 years ago but that is no longer the case.

Professor Ventura underlined certain inconsistency: the USA officially refused to apply the provision of blasphemy in the case of Salman Rushdie. Professor Ferrari and Professor McClean noted that, in certain cases, the internal rules of the academic world or of sporting associations are much stronger and more effective than the criminal law of the state. Professor Torfs expressed the view that, even if religious rules and norms offers more options for punishment (some denominations have their own criminal law and a disciplinary law as well), at present society does not seem to be ready for the state to delegate its powers to religious bodies.

The third session, chaired by Lars Friedner, Secretary General of the Church of Sweden, was devoted to sects. As a matter of fact, many national reports did not mention any particular provisions concerning sects. Only in France and Spain are there such provisions. In some states (for example, Latvia), there is a provision broadly agreed to be ‘anti-sectarian’, but the word itself does not appear. Professor Norman Doe recalled that it is important to check the material content of law, even if it does not explicitly contain the word ‘sect’. Professor Silvio Ferrari spoke in practical terms in favour of non-governmental centres, financed by the state, which distribute information about sects and which may raise the awareness of society at large, but he opposed the idea of the state protecting citizens from themselves. He underlined that the state does not have to worry about proselytism as such, unless it is abusive. The Belgian example of the approach to sects, mentioned by Professor Torfs, seems very interesting in this respect: the Belgian parliamentary committee once adopted a list of sects, which was ultimately not endorsed by the Parliament; nevertheless, the judges used this informal list in trials. Mr Friedner conclued at the end of the session that there is no universal definition of a sect, and suggested that ‘a sect is just something we don't like’.

The three academic sessions were followed by the Annual Assembly of the Consortium, which elected Professor Richard Puza from Tübingen as its next President.