Parliamentary experts advise to reject the bill on change of church jurisdiction

The Main Scientific Experts Department of the Ukrainian Parliament recommended rejecting bill No.4128 on the change by religious communities of their affiliation with religious centers.

The Department’s opinion, published on March 16, highlights the threat of unwarranted government interference in the autonomy of religious communities and the emergence of new conflicts because of confusion in the procedure of statute amendment, the Institute of Religious Freedom reports.

The parliamentary experts emphasize that “the autonomy of religious communities is part of pluralism in a democratic society and is thus directly protected by Art. 9 European Convention on Human Rights” (Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Metropolis Bessarabia and others v Moldova No. 45701/99 as of 13.12.2001).

According to the legal opinion of the European Court of Human Rights, in the case of St. Michael parish v. Ukraine, the religious community is entitled to determine at its discretion the manner in which they accept the new members and exclude their effective memebers. The internal structure of religious organizations and the rules governing the membership therein should be seen as the way in which such organizations express their views and observe their religious traditions.

“Those who profess a particular religion need not inform the state about their affiliation with a particular religious community and whether they are taking part in its religious life. It also means that a person may at any time change their affiliation to a particular religious community. Thus, there is a reason to believe that the matter is not the subject of legal regulation,” the experts noted.

In addition, bill No. 4128 proposes to determine affiliation of persons with a particular religious community through their identification with this religious community and participation in its religious life. However, according to the Department, it is not clear from the content of the proposed amendments what the terms “identification” and “religious life” mean.

"Given that the membership is floating in the bulk of religious communities of different faiths, the proposed wording on giving consent to change affiliation by a simple majority vote of citizen present at the meeting is counterproductive. The number of persons in attendance may be considerably lower than the overall number of members of the religious community,” parliamentary experts believe.

Also the cases of “adopting the legally equivalent alternative varied decisions by different persons who identified' themselves with a certain religious community" are not excluded.

Similar concerns were previously expressed by experts of the Institute of Religious Freedom. According to the IRS, these legislative changes may entail the situations where the registration authorities will have to decide whether to take note of the decision taken in accordance with the Statute of the registered religious community or in accordance with the new provisions of the law.

As it was previously reported, bill No. 4128 was initiated by Victor Yelenskyy, Svetlana Voitsekhovska, Pavlo Kyshkar and 4 MPs after discussing the proposed amendments at meetings of the Expert Council of the Department of Religious and Ethnic Affairs of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine. According to the authors, the proposed changes will “secure the right of religious community members to informed choice and free and unimpeded change of affiliation with religious centers to meet their religious needs and with a view of dignified expression of religious feelings.”