Comment

← Secular society upset by Judge Cherie decision

Jack of Kent, the noted legal blogger, has been tweeting to the effect that there is no evidence of discrimination here, which intrigues me, since I would have thought prima facie there is surely a case to answer. He has expanded his thoughts here.

I'm still not clear how he has arrived at his position, but I *think* he may be saying that because there is no *explicit* discrimination against atheists (a raft of cases where Judge Booth has thrown the book at heathens) the *implicit* favouring of the 'religious' in what she said is not evidence. A snippet:

An allegation of discrimination needs more than an "implication" of words which may not even be reported correctly or may even be taken out of context.

But I don't want to put words in his mouth, so read what he says and decide for yourselves.

My feeling is that it's *possible* that the judge has had submitted various good works the defendant has undertaken in his religious community, so what she says is just an unfortunate shorthand for this mitigation. Obviously if he's just said 'I pray a lot, your 'onour!', I would consider that implicit discrimination against the irreligious.

Permalink Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:38:00 UTC | #438625