Surayanda v The Welsh Ministers

Article 9 permits interference with religious manifestation where the public-health objective is properly identified and the interference is proportionate.

Under Article 9(2), the court must consider whether the measure is prescribed by law, pursues a legitimate and sufficiently important objective, is rationally connected with it, and goes no further than necessary. The court conducts an intense substantive evaluation, while allowing appropriate weight to expert decision-making. Where veterinary evidence supports eliminating infection risk and obtaining post-mortem information for herd management, slaughter may be proportionate despite grave religious consequences. A quantified assessment of residual risk is not necessarily required where an elimination-of-risk policy is justified.

The Welsh Ministers appealed against the Administrative Court’s decision quashing an order requiring the slaughter of Shambo, a temple bullock owned by a religious community. The order was made under section 32 of the Animal Health Act 1981, applied by Article 4 of the Tuberculosis (Wales) Order 2006, after the animal tested positive for exposure to bovine tuberculosis.

The community claimed that slaughter would gravely interfere with its Article 9 right to manifest religious beliefs. The judge held that no proper public-health objective or Article 9(2) balancing exercise had been established. The appeal concerned the lawfulness of the Minister’s approach and whether slaughter was proportionate to the relevant public-health and animal-health objectives.

1. Appeal allowed. The Court of Appeal unanimously set aside the orders quashing the slaughter notice and confirmation letter.
2. Pill LJ held that the judge had wrongly treated surveillance and slaughter as the public-health objective. The objective was the control and eradication of bovine tuberculosis, including protection of public and animal health. The slaughter policy was a means of pursuing that objective. The Minister had undertaken a genuine balancing exercise and was entitled to treat the religious interference as particularly grave.
3. Thomas LJ identified three Article 9(2) questions: whether the action was prescribed by law, whether it pursued a legitimate objective, and whether it was proportionate in scope and effect. The court had to make its own value judgment through intense review, but must give proper weight to expert decision-making and the margin of discretion available on scientific issues. A decision-maker may proceed on an assumed basis that interference is grave and serious, provided the decision is genuinely made on that basis.
4. Lloyd LJ explained that the objective included reducing the economic impact of bovine tuberculosis, maintaining public and animal health and welfare, limiting geographic spread, and reducing incidence in high-risk areas. The policy of surveillance and slaughter was rationally connected with that objective. The court’s task was substantive rather than procedural and did not require a merits review or a particular decision-making formula.
5. The evidence justified eliminating the transmission risk from a reactor animal and obtaining post-mortem information relevant to the management of the herd and neighbouring herds. There was no accepted effective treatment, isolation presented practical and animal-welfare difficulties, and the risk could not reliably be quantified or eliminated by the community’s proposals. The grave religious impact was given substantial weight, but the Minister was entitled to refuse an exception to the policy.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — allowed the appeal and set aside the orders quashing the slaughter notice and confirmation letter: [2007] EWCA Civ 893.
• High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court — quashed the Welsh Ministers’ slaughter decision and confirmation letter on 16 July 2007.