Finnish-born woman wins ECHR verdict over State of Italy in crucifix dispute

ECHR: crucifixes to be removed from state school classrooms

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“This is a day of celebration for us, and a magnificent historic moment in Italy”, declares Finnish-born Soile Lautsi in the small town of Abano Terme in northeastern Italy.
      Lautsi’s cause for celebration was the fact that she had just won her case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
      In the case “Lautsi v. Italy”, the ECHR ruled that crucifixes in classrooms are “contrary to parent’s right to educate their children in line with their convictions and to children’s right to freedom of religion.”
      The verdict was a clear victory for Lautsi over the Italian State, and marked also the end of a legal battle in various Italian courts that has lasted for seven years.
      Lautsi admits to being a secularist and says that the principle of secularism by which she wished to bring up her children plays an important role in the family.
      “I suppose our philosophy is kind of Schopenhaueresque: either you think for yourself, or you just believe”, Lautsi says.
     
Lautsi’, who has lived in Italy for over twenty years and is now a nationalised Italian, started her battle against the Italian State in 2002, when her two sons, then 11 and 13, attended the State school “Istituto comprensivo statale Vittorino da Feltre” in Abano Terme.
      “I visited the school and noticed the crucifixes that were displayed in a prominent place in each classroom. Not that this was anything new; in the kindergarten there were three of them on the wall. In Italy Catholicism is rammed down your throat at every instance and sometimes it gets exhausting to be an atheist.”
     
According to the ECHR statement, Lautsi “informed the school of her position, referring to a Court of Cassation judgment of 2000, which had found the presence of crucifixes in polling stations to be contrary to the principle of the secularism of the State”.
      The school, however, held on to its practice to display crucifixes in the classroom and subsequently the Italian Ministry of State Education issued a statement in which all schools were advised to do the same.
     
Lautsi then appealed to the Venetian Regional Administrative Court from where the complaint was submitted to the Constitutional Court for an examination in 2004.
      The Constitutional Court, however, held that it did not have jurisdiction over the case that it saw as statutory rather than legislative, and the proceedings before the administrative court were resumed.
      This dismissed the applicant’s complaint in 2005 by ruling that a crucifix is not just a religious symbol.
      In the court’s view, a crucifix symbolised the Italian history and culture, and consequently the Italian identity.
      It was “the symbol of the principles of equality, liberty and tolerance, as well as of the State’s secularism.”
      As the “flag” of the only Church named in the Constitution (the Roman Catholic Church), a symbol of the entire Italian State, the crucifix had become “one of the secular values of the Italian Constitution and represented the values of civil life”.
     
In July 2006 Lautsi lodged an application within the ECHR, which determined in its Tuesday verdict that the crucifixes in classrooms are indeed religious symbols.
      According to the ECHR ruling: “the presence of the crucifix - which it was impossible not to notice in the classrooms - could easily be interpreted by pupils of all ages as a religious sign and they would feel that they were being educated in a school environment bearing the stamp of a given religion.”
     
The ECHR also ordered the Italian State to pay Lautsi EUR 5,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damages.
      “Of course this is not a financial but a moral question”, Lautsi says. “Italy declares itself a secularist state, void of state religion, so it should act accordingly.”
      Lautsi does not want her photograph in a newspaper, for she wants to be able to “do her shopping in peace even in the future”.
      In the course of the years, a few death threats have also found their way to Lautsi’s mailbox, accompanied by dozens of harassing messages.
     
In Italy the case received wide attention on Tuesday. The Vatican denounced the verdict as “shocking, wrong, and nearsighted”.
      The Italian State plans to launch an appeal against the ECHR decision.
      If the ECHR Grand Chamber of the Court accepts the appeal, the matter will be handled one more time.
      In human rights issues, the ECHR is the highest law court in Europe, the verdicts of which bind the member states.


Links:
  ECHR Press Release: Lautsi vs. Italy

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