The Leyla Sahin case provides interesting insight into the Secularism versus religion

debate. The case involved a Muslim student studying at Istanbul University in Turkey
who was barred from attending classes and taking exams after the university authorities
issued a circular that banned the Muslim headscarf and beard on the university premises.

The Applican Leyla Sahin claimed a violation of Article 14 of the European Convention
of Human Rights, taken together with Article 9, which promotes freedom of thought,
conscience and religion. Article 14 is about the right to have education. She stated that
the prohibition on wearing the headscarf forced students to choose between education and
religion and discriminated between believers and non-believers.

The court stated that article 9 did “not protect every act motivated or inspired by a
religion or belief” (316). It further stated that the right to education was not absolute “but
may be subject to limitations.” (327) The right did not exclude “recourse to disciplinary
measures, including suspension or expulsion from an educational institution in order
ensure compliance with its internal rules.” (328)

Furthermore, “In democratic societies, in which several religions coexist within one and
the same population, it may be necessary to place restrictions on freedom to manifest
one’s religion or belief in order to reconcile the interests of the various groups and ensure
that everyone’s beliefs are respected.”

According to the judgment the Turkish republic was founded on the ideal that the state
should be secular and “that the defining feature of the Republican ideal was the presence
of women in public life and their active participation in society. Consequently, the ideas
that women should be freed from religious constraints and that society should be
modernized had common origins.” (tab3, 299)

The Turkish secular republic seems to be founded on ideals very different from the
American republic. It seems somewhat similar to the French republic in that both are
aimed at protecting the individual from the Church. To ensure this freedom however, the
State takes on a very active role and conveniently places barriers on public displays of
any religious orientation. The State has its own ideology. For example, in the above
paragraph we see that one of its goals is to ensure that women are active participants in
public life. It does not, however, believe that this is possible while observing the Islamic
headscarf. Therefore, in Turkey, we discover as we read the judgment, that the
government has placed various restrictions on wearing the headscarf. One may ask
though, is respect for religious belief in a pluralistic society only possible through the
State regulation and restriction of any outward manifestation of religious observance? Is
there no alternative way of showing respect? How is it possible to not talk about or show
any inclination towards a belief system that guides most of the acts that we do in our
daily lives? Is not State interference in religious practice as oppressive to individual
liberties as the evil of the Church that it was trying to shield them from?

With the introduction of concepts like John Rawls’ Political Liberalism, the modern
world has become increasingly wary of State interference in cases such as Leyla Sahin.
According to Political Liberalism, the state’s concept of good, in this case the way it
seeks to ensure female participation by banning the headscarf can be equally oppressive.
In the case, the court continuously appealed to the superior truth of secularism to justify
the ban. However, actions and statements such as these fail to show respect to citizens
who may have different values than that of the State. If we look at Leyla Sahin’s actions,
they may not be in conformity with the Turkish State’s ideals, but they are reasonable
when we look at them from John Rawls’s perspective. By justifying state action to curb
manifestation of religious belief, the Turkish state has failed to take the fact of ethical
pluralism seriously. In effect, the state is justifying a type of oppression while claiming to
protect its citizens from another type.

According to the ideals of Political Liberalism, the use of coercive power in the manner
that the Turkish government is doing cannot be justified unless there is some special
justification. In a way, State oppression is a worse evil than other forms of social
oppression because it can be justified using the executive and judicial branches of
government, leaving citizens with little to no remedy at all for the hurt that it inflicts upon
them.

In conclusion, I believe that the judgment given by the European court does not conform
to the model given by Political Liberalism.