Abstract

MELCHIOR, FRANCO ANDRÉS. LAICISM AND LIBERALISM AS PARADIGMS IN THE INTERPRETATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: REFLECTIONS ON THE CONFIGURATION OF THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN THE CONTEXT OF FRENCH DEBATE ABOUT THE ISLAMIC VEIL. Díkaion [online]. 2011, vol.20, n.2, pp.237-277. ISSN 0120-8942.

The use of Islamic veil for girls in public schools of France has aroused an important discussion about laicism, multiculturalism and religious freedom. This debate was under the scrutiny of the European Court of Human Rights, which issued several judgments about the problem. The requirement of neutrality, the fundamental principle of laicism, allows that the State, supposing to protect the freedom of conscience of no religious people, confines the exercise of religious freedom to the strict boundaries of private life. At the same time, while requiring neutrality, the State is trying to impose in the public arena a sort of civil religion, depriving of the right of expression in religion matters. These two elements could be found not only in the fathers and current thinkers of laicism, but in authors that, without this enrollment, are finally supporting the same conclusions. The principal mistake that is under that is a conception of freedom derived from the Illustrated liberalism, an error that in the end is derived of a limited conception of the man. The pretensions of these doctrines are impossible to perform, because the religion cannot be relegated to the interior of man without to force the freedom itself. If some States continue following these ideas, will be no limits in the violation of the individual freedoms. Therefore, instead to see the religion as a "toxic" element in the social sphere, the relationship between State and religion should be marked for a positive laicism. That implies a legitimate autonomy between them and to recognize the positive value of religion for the individual and social life, an element that is so valuable to the point that is consecrated as a human right.

Keywords : Hijab; schools; France; State; Constitution; Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; European Court of Human Rights; European Covenant of Human Rights; laicism; neutrality; freedom of expression; religion; religious freedom; freedom of conscience; civil religion; liberalism; modernity; freedom; positive laicism; human rights.

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