Borisova A.S. Right to “religious feelings”: legal aspects of protection of believers

Abstract: The subject of this research is the comparative analysis of the approaches of the European Court of Human Rights, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and Venice Commission towards the notion of “religious feelings” and the necessary level of its protection by the government. A special attention is given to the essence of the concept of religious feelings and whether or not it is possible to give a legal definition to this notion, which is the reason for an assessment of the comparability between Article 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on insulting the religious feelings of believers, with the European standards in the area od requirements for legal certainty. The main conclusion is that it is impossible to set a normative definition for “religious feelings”. The author justifies the need for a clear delineation of incitement of hate and intolerance by difference of religion, and insulting the feelings of believers, including blasphemy and sacrilege, as well as the reasonableness of decriminalization of “insult of religious feelings of believers”.

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