Tuesday 13 April 2010

Italian Crucifix Case - Judgement now in

In the case of Lautsi v Italy the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Italian Government to remove Crucifixes from all State Schools.

I have already Blogged on this case on the 5th November 2009 and 7th November 2009 but the full judgement was not available in English at the time. The Judgment is now available from the ECHR and can be downloaded HERE

Having read the full judgment I stand by what I said earlier based on the summary provided by the ECHR however for those commentators who have always maintained that Crucifixes are in Italian Schools only because of Mussolini (Boo Hiss) I do recommend that they read para 16 of the Judgment

'The obligation to display crucifixes in classrooms pre-dates the unification of Italy. Article 140 of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia's Royal Decree no. 4336 of 15 September 1860 required “each school without fail [to] be equipped ... with a crucifix”'

The Italian Government is currently appealing the Judgment to the full Court and is likely to be supported by several other European governments

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