The “living together” argument in the European Court of Human Rights case-law

Abstract

This article analyses the three cases where the argument of “living together” was engaged by the ECtHR and accepted as a legal justification for the prohibition of the full-face veils (burqa and niqab): SAS v. France (2014), Belcacemi and Oussar v. Belgium (2017), and Dakir v. Belgium (2017). It analyses the proposed concept of “living together” itself, explaining its content and its development in the French and Belgian contexts. The paper argues that there is a lack of a robust legal analysis sufficient to legitimize this new argument. Finally, it makes the case for more fact-oriented decisions and the need for the Court to engage in evaluating all the knowledge it obtains, including empirical material brought by the third parties’ interventions. This could be beneficial for two reasons: facilitating the application of the proportionality test and protecting the Court itself from dangerous challenges to its authority.

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