Seriousness and Cohesion of a Religion or Belief: Between Legal Concepts and Dictionary Definitions

In De Wilde v. the Netherlands (2021), the European Court of Human Rights accepted the Dutch court’s interpretation of the terms seriousness and cohesion, representing two of the four criteria that must be satisfied for views to qualify for protection as a religion or belief under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This paper aims to assess the judicial interpretations from two perspectives: linguistic and jurisprudential. First, we determine the meanings of both words by analysing their entries in five representative English dictionaries. Second, the courts’ interpretative approach is evaluated with reference to the existing Strasbourg case law. The analyses show that while the criterion of seriousness was interpreted correctly, the argumentation regarding the second requirement may be disputed from both perspectives considered. On the one hand, the courts’ understanding of cohesion extends beyond the conventional scope of this noun and aligns more closely with the definitions of its near-synonym, and on the other, it remains incompatible with the duty of public authorities to maintain neutrality and impartiality.