18th Annual Conference on ‘The Individual vs. the State’ at Central European University Budapest, June 4-5, 2010

Religion in the Public Square
Draft program (subject to further updates)
Collection of conference papers (password protected)

Our annual conference is dedicated to the constitutional problems of religion and its organized forms in public life. The Legal Studies Department of Central European University, Budapest in partnership Open Society Institute, Budapest intends to discuss the above relations not as a strictly legal problem, but combining constitutional and human rights aspects with historical, political, psychological and sociological dimensions of the tension.
What is the place of religion and religious convictions in government, politics and in public life, taking into consideration the need to respect the free exercise of religion? In the separation or neutrality paradigm churches (religious organizations) are expected to stay away from public affairs. But other models of state neutrality and secularity - rooted in historical struggles and influenced by experiences and mistakes - result in differing forms of cooperation between religious organizations and the state. Different religions have different positions on this matter. Challenges to existing arrangements of church-state affairs come from many corners of domestic and international affairs, as well as - and probably most spectacularly - from the vicinity of the religious freedom of less established (or less popular) holders of faith. This year’s conference aspires to explore the clash of the secular and the religious in the public square in and beyond constitutional democracies.
An eternal problem for neutral or secular states is the extent to which they could (and should) assist in the enjoyment of individual religious freedom and accommodate the faith-based needs of believers without creating an unacceptable entanglement between secular governmental actors and religious institutions. The display of religious symbols in the public square seems to have become the most emblematic of these debates, where somewhat arbitrarily picked religious insignia are transformed into makeshift lightening-rods for grounding strong sentiments (at times masked as constitutional arguments) in increasingly intense public debates resulting in legal regulation. Such heated public debates manufactured around religious symbols tackle the issue of the plurality of any polity not only in its religious composition, but also concerning the community’s racial, ethnic and cultural diversity with lasting political consequences.
Courts of law are regularly invited to police this barrier even in jurisdictions where express guarantees to this effect are not apparent from the text of the constitution. Claims of church autonomy are problematic when they are invited to shield discriminatory employment practices or allegedly criminal behavior, and are particularly interesting when invoked to eliminate an emerging schism (at times appearing as a dispute about church property or registration of newly appearing religious organizations).It is also well noted that churches remain legitimate participants of the public discourse in matters of public concern competing for attention, opportunities and space to advance their position in competition with numerous other legitimate participants of marketplace of ideas. In the course of these exchanges, however, churches are meant to keep their distance from interfering with the operations of government actors and the government is responsible for protecting religious and other minorities in the public square. The intensity, frequency and adopted genre of contributions by religious actors may in itself be a reason for concern. Religious parties or political parties with openly religious agendas might be reasons for concern on the level of national constitutions, as well as for their impact in an increasingly globalized political space. In addition, it is a matter of increasing concern for constitutionalists that religious activities which may not be eligible for government support or funding in a secularist regime will be accepted as eligible for such support and promotion if packaged inside secular rights claims.
In conclusion, it is crucial to point out that the secularity or neutrality of a constitutional regime does not suggest or imply that a polity is devoid of strong religious convictions, sentiments and the intense expression thereof. Contemporary constitutional and human rights responses however seem to be at loss when invited or invoked to address divisive, intense or aggressive interventions launched on behalf or in the name of religious convictions.
Conveners: András Sajó and Renáta Uitz