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Ministers of worship may carry out functions that have civil import; some religious acts have civil effects. Some religious professions do not limit the role of minister to men. Given that the rules and regulations of Ecclesiastical Law relating indirectly to women ministers of worship are scarce (Social Security), the purpose of this paper is to gain a clearer understanding of the situation and find out the number of women ministers who carry out religious functions that have civil effects. The Sub-Directorate General of Religious Freedom has been consulted to establish the number of ministers of worship included in the Registry of Religious Bodies, and religious organizations approached to see how many such ministers are women. At the same time, this analysis also provides further information on the functions that women carry out in religious organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the protection of religious freedom in the workplace by looking at the exceptions in current legislation governing the prohibition of discrimination on religious grounds, in line with European Directive 2000/78. Although it has not been transposed into Spanish law, this paper also addresses the right of religious denominations and ethos-based organizations to discriminate against workers on religious grounds and to require allegiance to their doctrine or ethos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of the decline of the modern state on the transformation of the Ius Publicum Ecclesiasticum Externum, a discipline that emerged alongside the rise in the late Middle Ages of a particular form of political organization known as the modern state. It analyzes the process by which the modern state emerged and developed, based primarily on the concept of sovereignty. The Church addressed this phenomenon through the development of the Ius Publicum Ecclesiasticum Externum. Amongst other factors, globalization and the eclipse of the concept of sovereignty are expected to lead to the decline of the modern state. These circumstances favor the transformation of the Ius Publicum, which tends to offer a universal vision that favors the protection of human rights and views the Church as a People of God, opening a greater space in which laypeople may foster the Christian spirit in the temporal order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper departs from the consideration of the Inter-American system of human rights as a legal scenario resistant to religious disputes. The study of cases on religious freedom will offer a general approach to the contributions made by both the Commission and the Court to defend freedom of religion. This knowledge could be useful to solve eventual future religious problems in a pluralistic society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to show the different legal consideration of decisions based upon religious convictions and those based upon personal preferences according to a vital autonomous project, specially, when these decisions means disobedience to law and a right to conscientious objection is claimed. After an analysis of Osmanoğlu y Kocabaş vs. Switzerland and other case laws, the author suggests a stronger legal protection of decisions based upon religious convictions and the consideration of autodetermination as a liberty more than as a right in the strict sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I address religion from a legal perspective. I argue that religion should be settled outside the secular legal system; otherwise, the secular legal system would not be truly secular. However, religion demands special protection as a public good and social value, as it constitutes an extrinsic constitutional limit of the legal. For a secular legal system, protecting religion ultimately means protecting human beings' pursuit of the suprarational. Protecting suprarationality has three important legal consequences: (a) suprarational acts in the strictest sense should never be validated as legal acts; (b) democratic communities should not use suprarational arguments in legal discourse; and (c) the secular legal system cannot regulate suprarationality or the essentials of the religious community. The protection of religion demands both a dualistic structure that distinguishes the political community from the religious community and the treatment of religion as a right: the right to religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the registration of real estate used for worship or religious purposes in the Spanish Property Register. The discussion focuses on properties belonging to the Catholic Church, which are registered through the special procedure set out in article 206 of the Ley Hipotecaria (Spanish Real Estate Law), as well as on the enrolment of structural modifications made or added to the registered property. Given that properties used for worship or religious purposes have special characteristics, they are governed by a specific legal framework which must be recorded in the Property Register, so as to ensure proper opposability by third parties. Thus, the argument here is that the Register must also record the cultural/religious function of a given property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major issues of concern in the international organizations of human rights is the protection of places of worship against attacks of other groups or governments. The first part of this paper analyzes the documents of United Nation, European Union or Council of Europe organizations dealing with human rights. The result of the research offers a precise map of the hot spots of religious intolerance along the world. Main aspects of religious liberty, as the access to places of worship, the peaceful reunion inside them or the conservation, are infringed. The second part focuses on the European Court of Human Rights cases dealing with places of worship. We could notice how the Court analyzes carefully conditions and limitations of the establishment of places of worship in several European States, examining accomplishment with the minimum standards of the right of religious freedom enshrine in article 9 of the European Convention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration has become a more common phenomenon in Spain in recent times and, as a consequence, the number of mixed marriages has also risen. This paper analyses the statistics as regards migration patterns in relation to marriage rates and religious diversity in Spain, so as to explore the meaning and development of the canonical regulation of mixed marriages, in general, and disparity of worship as a matrimonial impediment, in particular. The specific conditions required to obtain dispensation of any such impediment, thus enabling marriage, are addressed in considerable detail. In addition, the article also deals with the regulations set out by the Spanish Episcopal Conference on marriage between Catholics and Muslims. In this regard, possible problems (religious, cultural, etc.) and solutions, as well as legal matters including the risk of nullity relating to such marriages, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Article 19.2 of the Law 2/2010, on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy, includes the first regulation of conscientious objection to abortion in Spanish Law. This paper examines the (in) consistency of such regulation with the essential content of the right to ideological freedom, religious freedom and freedom of worship, according to the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court, as well as an overall evaluation of its scope and limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the announced reform of the Organic Law on Religious Freedom in Spain, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the grounds on which the reform process should rest and the main points it should address. Different proposals are made regarding both the individual and collective subject of religious freedom, in order to achieve the best possible legal framework for the free exercise of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years serious conflicts between freedom of speech and freedom of religion have arisen. These conflicts have attracted the interest of Social Sciences, Law among them. This article examines those conflicts from a legal perspective, studies the concept of defamation of religion and its legal implications, analyzes the concept of hate speech concerning religion as a legitimate limitation to freedom of speech. Finally, the paper exposes the legal doctrine of the European Court of Human Rights on this topic and the Spanish legal protection of religious sentiments as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper on Comparative law analyses public security as a limit to the exercise of the religious freedom. The question is focused on a concrete social environment: the Canadian public schools. For that goal a Sentence of the Supreme Court of Canada, is taken into account. This decision authorizes the use of an aspect of religious adscription --kirpan--, potentially detrimental, item by of a student belonging to a religious denomination: sikh. From a critical point of view, the findings of the Sentence are analysed and placed in relation to the Spanish constitutional doctrine referred to the limits of the exercise of the right to religious freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]