The Hobby Lobby Victory

On June 30^th, 2014, the US Supreme Court gave out its judgment in favor of Hobby Lobby Inc in the highly publicized Burwell v Hobby Lobby case[1].

The case opposed Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., a family-owned arts-and-craft stores corporation to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (hereafter HHS)[2]. It emerged from Hobby Lobby’s refusal to apply government legislation on health care (Affordable Care Act) which included a provision requiring contraception coverage by corporations. The company, established and run under the principles of Catholic faith, contended that it was entitled not to apply the legislation in virtue of its freedom of religion under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA).

The Court held that the contraceptive mandate of the HHS was unlawful. This ruling in favor of the corporation is to the great satisfaction of the European Centre for Law and Justice which had participated in proceedings. It had indeed filed a brief as amicus curiae along with other civil and religious organizations and university societies.

The brief made reference to the rulings of other courts including the European Court of Human Rights to support its decision. It stated, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 18, that the right to manifest religion or beliefs collectively should be protected. This was mentioned in the ECtHR’s Sindicatul[3] and ECmHR’s Rommelfanger[4] decisions protecting the organizational life of the community and the collective dimension of religious freedom.

The Court sided with the amicus curiae’s contention that this freedom should be recognized for commercial and non-commercial entities alike especially when the former are ‘ethos-based organizations’ as is the case for Hobby Lobby. “[R]eligious beliefs practiced collectively may naturally require modern corporate forms, including for-profit ones” the brief stated. Religious organizations may be for profit and similarly, corporations which are not created as religious organizations should not be “stripped of all dimensions of religious conviction.” What’s more, the recognition of such rights would encourage the exercise of ‘corporate conscience’ and the development of social goals other than profit-making. Just like “Coca-Cola and polar bears,” a corporation is entitled to promote values that are not directly linked to its business. Companies have a social responsibility and it is more and more common for them to give out to charities for example.

The government’s argument that the legislation employed “the least restrictive means to advance the state’s interests” thus failed before the Court. Indeed obliging corporations to comply with provisions of law that are contrary to their ethics would constitute a huge curtailment of the collective expression of religion. The state interests here at stake are not strong enough to justify such a restriction on religious freedom.

The ECLJ welcomes such a decision and the recognition by the US Supreme Court of the significance of the right to the exercise of religion in a business context.

[1] Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. (2014).

[2] Sylvia Burwell automatically replaced Kathleen Sebelius as petitioner when the latter resigned on April 10, 2014.

[3]Sindicatul “Pastorul cel Bun” v. Romania, No. 2330/09 (ECtHR Grand Chamber, 2013)

[4]Rommelfanger v. Germany, No. 12242/86 (ECmHR, 1989)