European Court of Human Rights

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 175

June 2014

Fernández Martínez v. Spain [GC] - 56030/07

Judgment 12.6.2014 [GC] See: [2014] ECHR 615

Article 8

Article 8-1

Respect for private life

Refusal to renew teacher of Catholic religion and morals’ contract after he publicly revealed his position as a “married priest”: no violation

Facts - The applicant is a secularised Catholic priest. In 1984 he applied to the Vatican for dispensation from the obligation of celibacy. The following year he got married and he and his wife have five children. From 1991 onwards he taught Catholic religion and ethics in a State secondary school, under an annual contract which was renewed by the Ministry of Education on the basis of the binding opinion of the bishop of the diocese. In 1996 the applicant took part in a gathering of the “Movement for Optional Celibacy” of priests (MOCEOP). On that occasion the participants expressed their disagreement with the Church’s position on various issues such as abortion, divorce, sexuality and birth control. An article was published in a regional newspaper, illustrated by a picture of the applicant with his family and mentioning his name, together with comments attributed to him. In 1997 the applicant was granted dispensation from celibacy. His teaching contract was not renewed, on the ground that by publicising his situation as “married priest” he had breached his duty to teach “without creating a risk of scandal”. The applicant challenged that decision in the domestic courts, but to no avail. The domestic courts took the view that, in so far as the reasoning for the non-renewal decision had been strictly religious, they had to confine themselves to verifying respect for the fundamental rights at stake. In particular, the Constitutional Court, after carefully examining the facts of the case, observed that the State’s duty of neutrality prevented it from ruling on the notion of “scandal” used by the Bishop in refusing to renew the applicant’s contract or on the merits of the principle of the optional celibacy of priests advocated by the applicant. However, it also examined the extent of the interference with the applicant’s rights and found that it was neither disproportionate nor unconstitutional but was justified by the respect due to the lawful exercise of the Catholic Church’s right to freedom of religion in its collective or community dimension, in conjunction with the right of parents to choose their children’s religious education.

In a judgment of 15 May 2012 (see Information Note 152), a Chamber of the Court found, by six votes to one, that there had been no violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

Law - Article 8: An individual’s right to get married and to make that choice known to the public was protected by the Convention. Unlike the Chamber, the Grand Chamber took the view that the question in the present case was not whether the State was bound, in the context of its positive obligations under Article 8, to ensure that the applicant’s right to respect for his private life prevailed over the Catholic Church’s right to refuse to renew his contract. Even though it was not a public authority which had actually taken the non-renewal decision, it sufficed for such an authority to intervene at a later stage for the decision to be regarded as an act of a public authority. The crux of the issue lay in the action of the State authority, which, as the applicant’s employer, and being directly involved in the decision-making process, had enforced the Bishop’s non-renewal decision. Whilst the Court recognised that the State had limited possibilities of action in the present case, it was noteworthy that if the Bishop’s decision had not been enforced by the Ministry of Education, the applicant’s contract would certainly have been renewed. Consequently, the conduct of the public authorities had constituted an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life.

The impugned interference was in accordance with the law and pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the rights and freedoms of others, namely those of the Catholic Church, and in particular its autonomy in respect of the choice of persons accredited to teach religious doctrine.

The Court found it appropriate to take the following factors into account:

(a)  The applicant’s status - By signing his successive employment contracts, the applicant had knowingly and voluntarily accepted a heightened duty of loyalty towards the Catholic Church and that had limited the scope of his right to respect for his private and family life to a certain degree. Such contractual limitations were permissible under the Convention where they were freely accepted. Indeed, from the point of view of the Church’s interest in upholding the coherence of its precepts, teaching Catholic religion to adolescents could be considered a crucial function requiring special allegiance. Even if the applicant’s status as married priest was unclear, a duty of loyalty could still be expected of him on the basis that the Bishop had accepted him as a suitable representative to teach Catholic religion.

(b)  Publicity given by the applicant to his situation as married priest - In choosing to accept a publication about his family circumstances and his association with what the Bishop considered to be a protest-oriented meeting, the applicant had severed the special bond of trust that was necessary for him to carry out his tasks. Having regard to the importance of religious education teachers for all faith groups, it was hardly surprising that this severance would entail certain consequences. The existence of a discrepancy between the ideas that had to be taught and the teacher’s personal beliefs might raise an issue of credibility if the teacher actively and publicly campaigned against the ideas in question. Thus, in the present case the problem lay in the fact that the applicant could be understood to have been campaigning in favour of his way of life to bring about a change in the Church’s rules, and in his open criticism of those rules.

(c)  Publicity given by the applicant to his membership of MOCEOP and the remarks attributed to him - Whilst it had been generally known that the applicant was married and had five children, it was not clear to what extent his membership of an organisation with aims incompatible with official Church doctrine had also been known to the general public before the publication of the impugned article. However, the sole fact that there was no evidence to suggest that the applicant, in his class, had taught anything incompatible with the Catholic Church’s doctrine did not suffice for it to be concluded that he had fulfilled his heightened duty of loyalty. In addition, there was little doubt that the applicant, as a former priest and director of a seminary, was or must have been aware of the substance and significance of that duty. Moreover, the changes brought about by the publicity given to the applicant’s membership of the MOCEOP and by the remarks appearing in the article were all the more important as the applicant had been teaching adolescents, who were not mature enough to make a distinction between information that was part of the Church’s doctrine and that which corresponded to the applicant’s own personal opinion.

(d)  State’s responsibility as employer - The fact that the applicant had been employed and remunerated by the State was not such as to affect the extent of the duty of loyalty imposed on him vis-à-vis the Catholic Church or the measures that the latter was entitled to take if that duty were breached.

(e)  Severity of the sanction - It was of particular importance that an employee dismissed by an ecclesiastical employer had limited opportunities of finding another job. This was especially true where the employer had a predominant position in a given sector of activity and enjoyed certain derogations from the ordinary law, or where the dismissed employee had specific qualifications that made it difficult, if not impossible, to find a new job elsewhere.

Moreover, as a result of his former responsibilities within the Church, the applicant had been aware of its rules and should therefore have expected that the publicity he had given to his membership of the MOCEOP would not be without consequence for his contract. In addition, in the present case, a less restrictive measure for the applicant would certainly not have had the same effectiveness in terms of preserving the credibility of the Church. It did not therefore appear that the consequences of the decision not to renew his contract had been excessive in the circumstances of the case, having regard in particular to the fact that the applicant had knowingly placed himself in a situation that was completely in opposition to the Church’s precepts.

(f)  Review by the domestic courts - The applicant had been able to complain about the non-renewal of his contract at various levels of jurisdiction. The domestic courts had taken into account all the relevant factors and, even though they had emphasised the applicant’s right to freedom of expression, they had weighed up the interests at stake in detail and in depth, within the limits imposed on them by the necessary respect for the autonomy of the Catholic Church. The conclusions thus reached did not appear unreasonable. The fact that the Constitutional Court had carried out a thorough analysis was all the more evident as two dissenting opinions were appended to its judgment, thus showing that the court had examined the issue from various perspectives, whilst refraining from ruling on the substance of the Church’s principles. As to the Church’s autonomy, it did not appear, in the light of the review exercised by the national courts, that it had been improperly invoked in the present case. In other words, the Bishop’s decision not to propose the renewal of the applicant’s contract could not be said to have contained insufficient reasoning, to have been arbitrary, or to have been taken for a purpose that was unrelated to the exercise of the Catholic Church’s autonomy.

Having regard to the State’s margin of appreciation in the present case, the interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life was not disproportionate.

Conclusion: no violation (nine votes to eight).

 

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