Freedom of Religion: the Doctrine of Forum Internum in the Echr's Law Enforcement Practice

Abstract

The legal dimension of freedom of religion is important in the formation of civilizational approaches to state-building processes, strengthening civil society, and the humanistic outlook of citizens that would promote pluralism and tolerance and be shared by the entire community. The study of the relevant legal framework in Ukraine, the state, scope, and completeness of the reflection of the essence of freedom of conscience and religion in it and some legal documents, has necessitated the expression of our thoughts on their implementation. The purpose of this study is to analyze the right to freedom of religion and to study the application of the forum internum doctrine in the judicial and law enforcement practice of the ECHR. To achieve this, the following research tasks were solved: the author analyses the doctrine of forum internum (personal faith, internal freedom), and approaches to its content; examines models of church-state relations (in particular, the ECHR judgments on the forum internum doctrine and their impact on Ukrainian legislation). A range of methods of scientific cognition was used in the course of the study, in particular, the dialectical method (to assess the mutual influence of various legal provisions on the protection of the right to freedom of religion and religious belief), the method of structural analysis

and synthesis (in the context of the study of the doctrine of forum internum (personal faith, internal freedom), approaches to its content), historical and logical methods, methods of deduction and induction (helped to identify models of church-state relations (separating, identifying and cooperative), comparative (analyzed the ECtHR judgments on the forum internum doctrine and their impact on Ukrainian legislation). The author concludes that the doctrine of forum internum (personal faith, internal freedom) has a dualistic nature: on the one hand, it gives a person internal freedom, i.e. the ability to choose, adhere to, develop and even completely change their personal thoughts and beliefs; and on the other hand, it obliges the State to refrain from actions aimed at preventing any ideological processing of a person, interference with fundamental ideas and beliefs that are born in the depths of a person's soul. However, the state may impose restrictions on freedom of conscience and religion, but they have fairly clear limits. The author examines the genesis of the concept of "freedom of religion" in the history of legal traditions and constitutional documents and concludes that a significant period has passed during which significant changes have taken place in the stereotypes in the public consciousness, religious ideas, and state-legal relations regarding freedom of worldview. The author examines the ECtHR judgments on the forum internum doctrine and their impact on Ukrainian legislation. It is noted that, given the complex state-building processes of modern Ukraine, the institution of religious freedom requires a more detailed study in the philosophical and legal sense, which will allow for improving its conceptual framework. The author points out that the problems associated with worldview values and human rights in the area of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion make it relevant to study the doctrine of forum internum (personal faith, internal freedom) and its impact on judicial and law enforcement practice.