The Constitutional Court has issued a ruling that closes the door for many relevant religious congregations to prohibit or limit the entry of women into their ranks. The second chamber of the court has ruled in favor of a woman who had been suing for almost five years to be part of the Pontifical Royal and Venerable Slavery association of the Santísimo Cristo de La Laguna, in the Canary Islands, understanding that that congregation holds a position of dominance real about a specific cult and that cannot discriminate against women.
The sentence, as confirmed by court sources to elDiario.es, has gone ahead with four votes in favor and two against by two magistrates who will cast dissenting votes.
The woman who has taken her case to the Constitutional Court was fighting to join this association which, as she explains on her website, “has been part of the history of the Church and the city of San Cristóbal de La for more than three centuries.” Lagoon”. As Canarias Now explained, since 2018 there have been several Catholics who have sued this Slavery, one of the most important in the Canary Islands, for its veto on women.
A court ruled in favor of this woman in 2020 and upheld the claim in its entirety, a decision that was later confirmed by the Provincial Court. Among other arguments, the judges of the Canary Islands highlighted that even the Bishopric of Tenerife had asked Slavery to allow the entry of women into its ranks, and they understood that the term “gentleman” that appeared in the association’s statutes did not exclude, less literally, to the women of this Slavery. “There is no part that excludes women as candidates for membership outside of the word “gentlemen,” said the Court.
The Supreme Court turned the case around and ruled in favor of Slavery. The judges of the Civil Chamber explained that the right of association also included the right of the religious congregation itself to “establish its own organization” and that it did not hold what is known as a “dominant or exclusive position” since, they said in In its ruling, “its activities and purposes are strictly and exclusively religious” and “therefore removed from any economic, professional or labor connotation.”
This religious association, the Supreme Court concluded, does not hold any monopoly on worship in the Canary Islands and is not obliged to admit women, the Supreme Court reasoned, citing several examples: when in 2001 it did force a community of fishermen in Valencia to accept women for being an economic activity, or when in 2008 it ruled in the opposite direction in the case of a religious celebration in Irún that relegated women to the background.
The second chamber of the Constitutional Court, as this newspaper has learned, has concluded that if a religious association or congregation holds a position of dominance that, in practice, forces a believer to be in its ranks to develop their beliefs, it cannot establish limitations that, as in this case, prevent women’s access. It does not, therefore, affect all religious congregations but only those that have this monopoly over a specific area of worship.
In the case of this congregation from the Canary Islands, the Constitutional Court has understood, it did hold this position of dominance and its statutes cannot establish this prohibition. The fact that the appeal has been successful, these same sources indicate, affects around thirty women in total.
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