Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights to decide seminal church autonomy case "The stakes could not be higher for religious organizations. As the Becket Fund argued in its briefing to the United States Supreme Court, and in the presentation at the Council of Europe, these cases, whether they arise in Europe or in the United States, boil down to a simple question: Who picks the priest? Either it will be the Church, or it will be the State."

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, the final court of appeal within the European human rights system, has decided to hear a potentially groundbreaking appeal affecting the rights of religious groups in Europe to choose their own clergy. The Becket Fund had publicly urged the Grand Chamber to take up the case, Sindicatul “Pastorul cel bun” v. Romania, because of its importance for the freedom of churches and other religious organizations across Europe. In the Becket Fund’s view, the case has the potential to become a “Hosanna-Tabor for Europe,” referring to the Becket Fund’s successful church autonomy case at the United States Supreme Court earlier this year. The Grand Chamber’s decision suspends the previous ECHR decision in the case.

We blogged about the Sindicatul case here last month, when Becket Fund Deputy General Counsel Eric Rassbach spoke at a conference focused on the case at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France.

The stakes could not be higher for religious organizations. As the Becket Fund argued in its briefing to the United States Supreme Court, and in the presentation at the Council of Europe, these cases, whether they arise in Europe or in the United States, boil down to a simple question: Who picks the priest? Either it will be the Church, or it will be the State. And if it is the State, that means at the end of the day judges will be selecting clergy. That is not a role that judges in a modern democratic state should seek to take on. One of the most remarkable parts of the previous panel decision now suspended was that it penalized the government of Romania for leaving this internal church matter up to the Romanian Orthodox Church.

The Becket Fund looks forward to filing an intervention at the ECHR in favor of Romania and the Romanian Orthodox Church.