Basic tensions of governance of religious diversity: item-list for the socio-legal research (WP7)

The focus on basic tensions or conflicts between basic rights may be easily misunderstood. Tensions or conflicts between rights are, indeed, normative tensions but not of the kind of „normativity‟ characteristic for moral philosophy. Quite to the contrary, these are tensions inherent in empirical norms (i.e. norms claiming legal validity) both in International Covenants of Civil and Political Rights or the ECHR as well as in (Constitutional) Law of Member States, whether we call these constitutions „liberal democratic‟ or „constitutional democracy‟ or not. In this „socio-legal‟ part of RELIGARE, we are interested in the empirical way in which Courts and Equal Treatment Commissions practically deal with them, how they argue for - often widely diverging - balancing and weighing in judging cases in specific contexts and circumstances - and whether and, if so how these processes are influenced by deeper, implicit cultural biases.