Resumen de Fernández Martínez v. Spain: An unclear intersection of rights?
Religious autonomy has been the object of increasing attention by the ECtHR, especially when there is a potential or actual conflict between this freedom and other rights protected by the Convention. In a system of religious teaching as the one in force in Spain, the judgment the qualification or lack of qualification of religion teachers belongs to the Catholic Church, and the state is almost entirely obliged to follow and implement the decision of the ecclesiastical authorities. In any event, it is foreseeable that many systems of religious instruction similar to the one in force in Spain will remain intact in the future. The Court emphasized that, in accordance with the constitutional principle of neutrality, the state was obliged to respect the judgments of ecclesiastical authorities on the qualification of teachers of Catholic religion – be those judgments positive or negative, as in the present case. The procedure the Strasbourg Court also ended in an unfavorable result for the applicant.
