Interesting EC Standing Case

From the Religion Clause blog. Here is the report:

By a vote of 8-7, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday,
sitting en banc, held that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge Tangipahoa
Parish School Board's practice of opening its meetings with a prayer. In Doe v. Tangipahoa Parish School Board, (5th Cir., July 25, 2007), the majority, in an opinion by Chief Judge Edith Jones, said that there was no evidence in the record that plaintiffs ever attended a school board meeting where a prayer like those challenged was recited.

In a "special concurrence", Judge Moss was unusually critical of the
Supreme Court. He wrote:

The Supreme Court cannot continue to speak out of
both sides of its mouth if it intends to provide real guidance to federal courts.... [I]t cannot continue to hold expressly that the injury in fact
requirement is no different for Establishment Clause cases, while it implicitly assumes standing in cases where the alleged injury, in a non-Establishment Clause case, would not get the plaintiff into the courthouse. This double standard must be corrected because ... it opens the courts' doors to a group of plaintiffs who have no complaint other than they dislike any government reference to God.

Dissenters, in two separate opinions, argued that the trial court's
pre-trial order makes clear that plaintiffs' attendance at board meetings was not a contested issue and that defendants impliedly admitted those facts. 2theadvocate reports on the decision. The splintered 3-judge panel decision in the case was discussed in a previous posting.

Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy

From my other class blog, Hooray Property.

Obviously, this is not an assignment, just some fun.

"No Religious Liberty Please, We're French"

French Move To Reinforce Secular State

Here is the report:

A panel appointed by the French government has produced a charter that aims to keep public institutions, including hospitals, the armed forces, schools and government offices, free from religious influence.

The document comes in the wake of an assault on a doctor by a young Muslim who objected to his wife being examined by a man when she developed complications after childbirth.

The High Council on Integration is recommending to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin that rules protecting the nation’s secular society be even more strictly enforced. The Council is recommending that France recognise a proposed charter that would clearly indicate how church and state should be kept separate in such public spaces. The proposed charter on secular life attempts “to define the rights and obligations of public servants as well as those of users of such
government-provided services”.Plans to draw the line on what is considered unacceptable behaviour in hospitals – behaviour that put patients at risk – were first raised three years ago during the debate over Muslim head scarves. The then-Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said that hospitals would be the next target.

Male doctors, particularly in maternity wards, say they are increasingly subject to insults and physical attacks. These are perpetrated mostly by men opposed to nudity or physical contact with their wives and daughters. The conviction last week of Fouhad BenMoussa highlighted the issue. He had attacked
Dr Jean-Francois Oury, the head of the maternity ward of Robert Debre Hospital in Paris after the doctor manually examined his wife, who had hemorrhaged after giving birth.

“In my religion, a man doesn’t touch a woman,” Ben Moussa screamed, as he slapped and pulled the doctor, according to the testimony. In court, Ben Moussa then claimed his real motivation was modesty, not religion. He was sentenced to a six-month jail term which can be served in part at home.

“I think the Oury case was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Emile Darai, secretary general of the National Congress of French Gynecologists and Obstetricians. The group, unusually, issued a statement in October asking, “Do gynecologists and obstetricians now need police protection to practice?

”The statement affirmed that male and female doctors would treat patients “whatever their sex,” and that a woman has the freedom “to determine contraception, abortion, sterilisation without the permission of her husband.

”The recommendation affirms the rights of patients, but stresses the need for a “balanced approach.” The report said there was no need to legislate on the issue, but highlighted that respect for the functioning of the hospital was vital. It suggested a charter laying out the constitutionally guaranteed principle of secularism be adopted and that pertinent sections be put on display at the relevant institutions.

The charter will remind government-agency employees that while the “freedom of conscience is guaranteed” while they’re on the job, the “constitutional principle of secularism requires [of all citizens] the obligation of [maintaining] strict neutrality” and “equal treatment of all individuals” and the “respect of the freedom of conscience” of others. In other words, no religious proselytising at work, even in subtle ways.

The proposed charter adds that, when a public servant “manifests” his or her “religious convictions during the carrying-out of his or her functions,” in effect that employee’s behaviour “constitutes a dereliction of his or her obligations."

Similarly, the text of the proposed charter also reminds those who use
government agencies’ services that they “must abstain from all forms of proselytising” if or when they avail themselves of such services.

The proposed charter advises members of the public to be cooperative when public servants need to verify a person’s identity. The clear implication of this is that anyone who has their head or face covered will have to uncover if identification is required. The charter would also be distributed at key events, including ceremonies where immigrants are granted French citizenship.

In an editorial, Le Monde says that it is useful to reaffirm the basic
principles of the republican agreement that all French citizens are supposed to share in, which establishes their secular way of life. But “to be obliged to codify some of the rules of communal life in society that should come naturally in a document that comes from the state [itself] – even if it is not a law – reveals the limits of integration policies in a country that [has become] more and more multicultural.

”The fact that the High Council on Integration’s proposed charter has
emerged at all, Le Monde concludes, suggests “a failure of ‘living together,’ a sort of civic fracture that a charter, however useful, will not be enough to diminish."

Hat tip Religion Clause blog