Religion, belief and early mornings.

For most of us, particularly if based outside of London, traipsing into the city on a cold wet Saturday in November is no one's idea of fun. Lets face it, it requires a healthy dose of CPD point motivation to convince us that it is worth the train fare and the early morning.

I am pleased to say that this year's Bar Conference was worth it, and the Employment Law Bar Association and the Discrimination Law Association are to be thanked and applauded for putting together a lively discussion entitled 'Religion and Belief – what is it all about?'. The question for the whole panel was, what are we protecting and should we be protecting it?

Robin Allen QC opened the talk and questioned whether we could really reconcile cases such as R. (on the application of Playfoot) v. Governing Body of Millais School [2007] EWHC 1698 (Admin) and R. (on the application of Watkins-Singh) v. Aberdare Girls' High School Governors [2008] EWHC 1865 (Admin). In the later case the school's uniform policy which prohibited the wearing of the Sikh religious bangle, the Kara, was held to be unlawful. Whereas in the earlier case, the act of wearing a purity ring was not found to be intimately linked to a believe in chastity before marriage and therefore not a manifestation of a belief.

These cases also raise the issue of distinguishing between the religion or belief itself and manifestations of it. The distinction is of course important as it may answer the question of whether the discrimination is considered direct or indirect and therefore whether it can be justified. Maqbool Javaid, solicitor and Human Rights Advocate, questioned whether the case law drew the correct line in this respect or whether certain manifestations should in fact be regarded as the religion itself.

Hanne Stinson, executive director of the British Humanist Association, took the opportunity to remind the audience that those who do not have a religion are also protected by the legislation and this should be reflected in the practice of employers and policy makers.

Finally, John Wadham from the Commission for Equality and Human Rights queried whether the underlining approach to religious discrimination was correct. The dawning of the Equality Bill offers the opportunity to reconsider our approach to discrimination law. Are we in fact carrying out a balancing exercise between conflicting rights and should this be reflected in the legislation?

Certainly, the talk raised many more questions than it answered, but they are questions worth asking. They are also questions that justified the train fare and the early morning.