The Ministerial Exception – Comparative Perspectives

This essay introduces the theme of the special issue on the legal practice of granting ‘ministerial exemptions’ to religious organizations and the relation of this practice to the principle of collective religious autonomy. It introduces and situates the other essays and their analyses of how concrete national and regional jurisdictions address calls for collective religious autonomy and ministerial exemptions within the wider debate regarding the nature of and relation between ‘religion’ and (secular) ‘law’ in late modern, religiously diverse societies. Additionally, the essay contributes to the special issue theme with an analysis of the ministerial exemption in the international human rights framework, examining the practice of the United Nations and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. The essay suggests that some of the difficulties law encounters with collective religious autonomy may be due to the rigidity of formerly established (modern) categories for thinking about law and religion in the constitutions of liberal states.