Право детета на слободу вероисповести у школи
The Rights of the Child to Religious Freedom at School

Summary/Abstract: The writer of this text expresses her opposition to the recent decree issued by the Government of the Republic of Serbia on introducing religious instruction into primary and secondary schools. She gives two legal reasons to justify her attitude. According to the national law, the constitutional principle of the separation of the church from the state, which has been in force in the Yugoslav legal order for over half a century and which is explicitly regulated by the existing constitutions of Serbia and Yugoslavia, does not allow the jurisdictions of the church and the state to overlap. This means that the state cannot interfere in religious issues, nor can the church have jurisdiction in exclusively secular matters, such as curricula in the public school system. According to international law governing the right of the child to freedom of religious worship, the teaching of certain religion or belief is considered as incompatible with the right to freedom of religion as stipulated in Article 18 (4) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Lastly, there are some non-legal arguments against the introduction of religious instruction in schools. They can be expressed through the notorious fact that every religion is based on dogma, exclusiveness and absolute obedience to authority. Taking all these reasons into account, the writer of this text thinks that instead of religious instruction in public schools there should have been introduced a general history of world religions and religious ethics presented in a neutral, rational and critical way.

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