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The Northern Ireland RE Judgment and the Hidden Contradiction in Modern British Education

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The Northern Ireland RE Judgment and the Hidden Contradiction in Modern British Education

A Landmark Judgment With Wider Implications
The UK Supreme Court’s ruling in JR87 and G v Department of Education has reshaped the legal landscape of religious education in Northern Ireland. The Court held unanimously that the teaching of RE and arrangements for collective worship in the school concerned were not conveyed in an objective, critical, and pluralistic manner, breaching the rights of both parents and child under Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights¹. This provision declares: “No person shall be denied the right to education” and that *“the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.”*² These rights operate in tandem with Article 9, which affirms freedom of thought, conscience, and religion³.

The judgment restored the 2022 High Court declaration that the RE provided was unlawful. It also found that relying on the statutory right of withdrawal imposed an undue burden on the parents and risked stigmatising the child⁴. The family, who did not wish their daughter taught that Christianity was absolute truth, argued that withdrawal would have made her the sole pupil removed from class, exposing their philosophical convictions to the entire school community⁵. Their solicitor called the decision a “watershed moment for educational rights.”⁶

A System Struggling to Respond
The Department of Education said it would “carefully consider the complex judgment,” while church representatives acknowledged that the current RE syllabus—drafted decades ago by the four main Christian denominations—“is not fit for purpose” in a more pluralistic society⁷. Teaching unions urged immediate guidance to avoid confusion in schools⁸. Humanist organisations welcomed the ruling, arguing that exclusively Christian RE cannot rely on withdrawal as a safeguard⁹. Despite the case’s significance, the legislation establishing the core syllabus was not quashed, leaving schools operating within a framework judicially declared incompatible with human-rights standards¹⁰.

What JR87 Reveals About the Wider Curriculum
While the ruling directly concerns RE, it indirectly exposes a deeper contradiction in British education. The Supreme Court held that *“conveying knowledge in a manner not objective, critical and pluralistic amounts to pursuing the aim of indoctrination.”*¹¹ If applied consistently, much contemporary RSE, RSHE, and PSHE content—particularly around gender identity—would fall foul of this standard. Yet such material is not scrutinised under Article 2 of Protocol 1. The reason is classificatory rather than substantive: RE is categorised as “belief-instruction,” whereas gender-identity content is officially categorised as “civic education” or “safeguarding information,” even though it advances a contested anthropology.

When Ideology Is Redefined as Neutrality
Gender ideology makes sweeping metaphysical and moral claims: that “gender identity” is an inner essence; that affirmation is a moral obligation; that language, embodiment, and social structures must change accordingly. In any objective sense, this is ideological content. But in Strasbourg jurisprudence—and by extension UK law—it is treated as “information of a social or scientific nature,” exempt from the pluralism safeguards applied to RE¹². As long as the State labels such teaching as “citizenship,” “health,” or “equality,” courts accept it as neutral.

The Unequal Burden on Religious and Philosophical Convictions
This produces an asymmetry in parental rights. Under JR87, Christian confessional teaching cannot be presented as truth. But under RSE and PSHE, contested secular doctrines about sex and identity can be presented as truth, with no requirement of objectivity or pluralism. Strasbourg case law consistently upholds compulsory attendance at lessons on diversity, sexuality, and civic ethics—even where they contradict religious belief—as necessary for “social integration” or “democratic citizenship”¹³. Thus religious parents receive the strongest protection in RE, but almost none in RSE/PSHE.

The Legal Structure Behind the Contradiction
This inconsistency is not accidental. Strasbourg jurisprudence distinguishes between “religious or philosophical instruction” (strictly limited by pluralism) and “civic or scientific information” (granted broad State discretion). In Kjeldsen v Denmark, the Court held that sex education was lawful because it was “purely informative,” a classification later extended to ethics and diversity teaching¹⁴. In Konrad v Germany, the Court confirmed that States may compel attendance at such lessons in the interest of social cohesion¹⁵. Under the Human Rights Act, UK courts must take this jurisprudence into account, and so the JR87 standard remains confined to RE.

What the JR87 Judgment Ultimately Exposes
The JR87 ruling illuminates the unspoken philosophical structure of modern human-rights law: it assumes that religious belief is the primary source of partiality or indoctrination, and that secular civic education is neutral. This assumption is no longer tenable in a cultural environment where the State itself advances strong ideological commitments under the guise of equality or safeguarding. The result is a hierarchy of convictions in which religious worldviews must be relativised, while secular ideological claims may be asserted as civic fact. JR87 exposes the fragility of this settlement—and the urgent need to re-examine the categories upon which educational rights are built.

  1. UK Supreme Court, JR87 and G v Department of Education, Press Summary, 19 November 2025.
  2. European Convention on Human Rights, Protocol No. 1, Article 2.
  3. European Convention on Human Rights, Article 9.
  4. UK Supreme Court, JR87 and G, Press Summary.
  5. UK Supreme Court, JR87 and G, Judgment PDF (findings on withdrawal burdens).
  6. The Irish Times, “North’s religious education is in breach of human-rights law,” 19 November 2025.
  7. The Newsletter (Belfast), “Churches: RE reforms important,” 19 November 2025.
  8. Belfast Telegraph, “Teaching union calls for guidance after landmark ruling,” 19 November 2025.
  9. Humanists UK, public statement, 19 November 2025.
  10. UK Supreme Court, JR87 and G, Judgment PDF (order section).
  11. UK Supreme Court, JR87 and G, Press Summary.
  12. European Court of Human Rights, Kjeldsen, Busk Madsen and Pedersen v Denmark (1976).
  13. ECtHR, Konrad v Germany (2006); Dojan and Others v Germany (2011).
  14. Kjeldsen, paras. 53–54.
  15. Konrad, Court’s reasoning on compulsory civic-education content.

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