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| Criticism · Persecution Supreme Court cases |
Numerous cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses have been heard by Supreme Courts throughout the world. The cases revolve around three main subjects:
The Supreme Courts of many states have established the rights of Jehovah's Witnesses and other faiths to engage in the practice of evangelism.[1]
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The Supreme Court of Canada has made a number of important decisions concerning Jehovah's Witnesses. These include laws that affected activities of Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1950s and more recent cases dealing with whether Witness parents had the right to decide what medical treatment was in the best interest of their children based on their faith.
On June 26, 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a 6-1 decision saying courts must take into account the maturity and decision-making capacity of minors before ruling on enforced medical treatment. The case involved a young Jehovah's Witness, identified only as A.C., who was admitted to a hospital in Winnipeg with internal bleeding as a complication of Crohn's Disease. Doctors ordered a blood transfusion, but A.C. and her parents refused on religious grounds; child-welfare officials moved to take her into care and a court ordered that she get the transfusion. At the time, the judge said he was satisfied she was competent, but since she was under 16 the judge felt that her competence was immaterial to existing law.[2]
Justice Rosalie Abella wrote for the majority, "A young person is entitled to a degree of decisional autonomy commensurate with his or her maturity." The court awarded reimbursement of legal fees; A.C.'s lawyer David Day said a similar case 15 years ago involved $450,000 in legal bills.[3]
In 1998, El Salvador's Supreme Court of Justice struck down a Social Security Hospital rule that required patients to donate blood in order to receive medical treatment. Previously, hospital policy called for all patients to provide two units of blood prior to a surgical procedure. After this, those who wish to receive medical treatment in the Social Security Hospital have the legal right to choose not to give blood.
In December 2000, Germany's Supreme court ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses did not have to pass a test of "loyalty to the state", laying the foundation for greater freedoms of worship for German citizens.[4][5]
The Federal Constitutional Court has held that transfusing blood to an unconscious Jehovah's Witness violated the person's will, but did not constitute a battery.[6]
In July 1985, in the state of Kerala, some of the Jehovah's Witnesses' children were expelled from school under the instructions of Deputy Inspector of Schools for having refused to sing the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana. A parent, V. J. Emmanuel, appealed to the Supreme Court of India for legal remedy. On August 11, 1986, the Supreme Court overruled the Kerala High Court, and directed the respondent authorities to re-admit the children into the school. The decision went on to add, "Our tradition teaches tolerance, our philosophy teaches tolerance, our Constitution practices tolerance, let us not dilute it".[7]
On March 8, 1996, the Supreme Court of Japan ruled that Kobe Municipal Industrial Technical College violated the law by expelling Kunihito Kobayashi for his refusal to participate in Kendo lessons based on Witness teachings regarding the "martial arts."[8]
Misae Takeda, a Jehovah's Witness, was given a blood transfusion in 1992, while still under sedation following surgery to remove a malignant tumor of the liver. On February 29, 2000, the four judges of the Supreme Court unanimously decided that doctors were at fault because they failed to explain that they might give her a blood transfusion if deemed necessary during the operation, thus depriving her of the right to decide whether to accept the blood transfusion or not.[9]
In 1993, the Supreme Court of the Philippines held that exemption may be accorded to the Jehovah's Witnesses with regard to the observance of the flag ceremony out of respect for their religious beliefs.[10]
In 1995 and 1996, the Supreme Court of the Philippines granted an exception to laws regarding marriage to a practicing Jehovah's Witness because enforcement of those laws would have inhibited free exercise of religious beliefs.[11][12]
After the fall of the communist bloc of nations in Eastern Europe and Asia, Jehovah's Witnesses were allowed to worship freely in those nations for the first time since World War II. However, in recent years political resistance to minority religions has prompted several court cases in the Moscow courts that have led to the denial of registration for Jehovah's Witnesses in the Moscow district.[13][14]
In the United States, numerous cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses are now landmark decisions of First Amendment law. In all, Jehovah's Witnesses brought 23 separate First Amendment actions before the U.S. Supreme Court between 1938 and 1946. Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone once quipped, "I think the Jehovah's Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties."[15]
The most important U.S. Supreme Court legal victory won by the Witnesses was in the case West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette (1943), in which the court ruled that school children could not be forced to pledge allegiance to or salute the U.S. flag. The Barnette decision overturned an earlier case, Minersville School District vs. Gobitis (1940), in which the court had held that Witnesses could be forced against their will to pay homage to the flag.
The fighting words doctrine was established by Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942). In that case, a Jehovah's Witness had reportedly told a New Hampshire town marshal who was attempting to prevent him from preaching "You are a damned racketeer" and "a damned fascist" and was arrested. The court upheld the arrest, thus establishing that "insulting or 'fighting words', those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech [which] the prevention and punishment of...have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."
In a more recent case, Jehovah's Witnesses refused to get government permits to solicit door-to-door in Stratton, Ohio. In 2002, the case was heard in the U.S. Supreme Court (Watchtower Society v. Village of Stratton — 536 U.S. 150 (2002)). The Court ruled in favor of the Jehovah's Witnesses, holding that making it a misdemeanor (to engage in door-to-door advocacy without first registering with the mayor and receiving a permit) violates the first Amendment as it applies to religious proselytizing, anonymous political speech, and the distribution of handbills.