Public Employers and Their Attitude to the Employment of Conscientious Objectors

2021 ◽  
pp. 59-77
Author(s):  
Rachel Barker
Law and World ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-144

The Article concerns the legal issues, connected with the situation, when a person (or group of people) disobey requirements of the Law or other State regulations on the basis of religious or nonreligious belief. The Author analyses almost all related issues – whether imposing certain obligation on individuals, to which the individual has a conscientious objection based on his/her religious beliefs, always represents interference with his/her religion rights, and if it does, then what is subject of the interference – forum integrum or forum externum; whether neutral regulation, which does not refer to religion issues at all, could ever be regarded as interference into someone’s religious rights; whether opinion or belief, on which the individual’s objection and the corresponding conduct is based, must necesserily represent the clear “manifest” of the same religion or belief in order to gain legal protection; what is regarded as “manifest” of the religion or other belief in general and whether a close and direct link must exist between personal conduct and requirements of the religious or nonreligious belief; what are the criteria of the “legitimacy” of the belief; to what extent the following factors should be taken into consideration : whether the personal conduct of the individual represents the official requirements of corresponding religion or belief, what is the burden which was imposed on the believer’s religious or moral feelings by the State regulation, also, proportionality and degree of sincerity of the individual who thinks that his disobidience to the Law is required by his/her religious of philosofical belief. The effects (direct or non direct) of the nonfulfilment of the law requirement (legal responsibility, lost of the job, certain discomfort, etc..) are relevant factors as well. By the Author, all these circumstances and factors are essencial while estimating, whether it arises, actually, a real necessity and relevant obligation before a state for making some exemptions from the law to the benefi t of the conscientious objectors, in cases, if to predict such an objection was possible at all. So, the issues are discussed in the prism of the negative and positive obligations of a State. Corresponding precedents of the US Supreme Court and European Human Rights Court have been presented and analysed comparatively by the Author in the Article. The Article contains an important resume, in which the main points, principal issues and conclusion remarks are delivered. The Author shows, that due analysis of the legal aspects typical to “Conscientious objection” is very important for deep understanding religious rights, not absolute ones, and facilitates finding a correct answer on the question – how far do their boundaries go?


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
pp. 260-261
Author(s):  
George Winter

George Winter considers why there is still many conscientious objectors to emergency contraception working in medicine, trying to understand this selective line of thought, drawing upon key papers to further break down their reasoning


1931 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 263
Author(s):  
Arthur C. Cole ◽  
Edward Needles Wright ◽  
Ella Lonn

Nursing ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (12) ◽  
pp. 65-66
Author(s):  
SUSAN A. SALLADAY

2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-408
Author(s):  
Koos-jan de Jager

Abstract Conscientious objectors under fire. Vaccine refusal among orthodox-Protestant soldiers in the Dutch Armed Forces, 1945-1950 During the Indonesian War of Independence (1945-1949), the Dutch government deployed 220,000 soldiers in the Indonesian archipelago. Among them was a group of conservative Christian soldiers who refused vaccinations against smallpox for religious reasons. Initially this caused no problems, but the situation changed after the outbreak of a smallpox epidemic in Indonesia in 1948. The non-vaccinated soldiers could not return to the Netherlands due to international restrictions. Although compulsory vaccination was abolished in 1939, some soldiers were forced to accept vaccination. In the Netherlands, representatives of the Reformed Political Party (SGP) and the conservative churches accused the Army of illegal actions. The central question in the debate was the space for religious minorities and divergent views on vaccination in the Dutch Armed Forces. This article studies the process of negotiation between the Dutch Armed Forces and the political and ecclesiastical representatives of this conservative religious group. Finally, this article argues for more research into religious diversity in the Dutch Armed Forces.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jud Campbell

Governmental neutrality is the heart of the modern Free Exercise Clause. Mindful of this core principle, which prevents the government from treating individuals differently because of their religious convictions, the Supreme Court held in Employment Division v. Smith that a neutral law can be constitutionally applied despite any incidental burdens it might impose on an individual�s exercise of religion. Conscientious objectors such as Quakers, for instance, do not have a constitutional right to be exempt from a military draft. Thus, neutrality now forms both the core and the outer limit of constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom. Judged according to founding-era views, however, this interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause is deeply problematic. Although historical scholarship has focused on the particular issue of religious exemptions, this Article takes a different approach by reexamining early debates about neutrality itself. These neglected sources demonstrate that modern cases invert the founding-era conception of religious freedom. For the Founders, religious freedom was primarily an unalienable natural right to practice religion�not a right that depended on whether a law was neutral. This evidence illuminates not only a significant transition in constitutional meaning since the Founding but also the extent to which modern priorities often color our understanding of the past.


2006 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-153
Author(s):  
Igal Ezraty ◽  
Freddie Rokem

The Trial of the Refuseniks drew attention to the moral issues of the conflict over the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, a conflict that is still tearing Israeli society in two irreconcilable directions. The “theatrical documentary reading” is a reenactment of the military trial of five conscientious objectors, based on court transcripts.


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