Suryananda, R (on the application of) v The Welsh Ministers

Article 9 is engaged where state action substantially interferes with a sincerely held religious obligation that is intimately linked to the claimant’s beliefs. If interference is alleged to protect public health, the decision-maker must identify the underlying public-interest objective at the correct level, rather than define it by reference to the particular animal or the immediate effect of the proposed action. The decision-maker must then balance the importance of that objective against the seriousness of the interference and show that the chosen measure is proportionate. Public-health concerns carry great weight, but they are not automatically determinative. A failure to conduct that substantive balancing exercise renders the decision unlawful.

The Community of the Many Names of God sought judicial review of two decisions concerning Shambo, its temple bullock. After Shambo reacted positively to a bovine tuberculosis skin test, an inspector issued a slaughter notice under section 32 of the Animal Health Act 1981. The Minister for Sustainability and Rural Development later decided that slaughter should proceed.

The Community argued that slaughter would seriously interfere with its Article 9 right to manifest its Hindu religious beliefs and that the Government had failed to exercise its statutory discretion lawfully. The Government relied on public health, principally the elimination of any transmission risk and the need for post-mortem confirmation. The central issues were whether Article 9 was engaged and whether the proposed interference was proportionate.

1. Article 9 engaged. The Community’s beliefs were coherent, sincere, deeply held and religious. The belief in the sanctity of life, and the perceived obligation to preserve the life of the temple bullock, were intimately linked to those beliefs. Slaughter would therefore constitute a gross interference with the manifestation of religion. The Government should first have identified both the engagement of Article 9 and the extent of the interference.
2. Proportionality required. Under Article 9(2), the Government had to pursue a legitimate public-health aim, establish a pressing social need and show that slaughter was proportionate. The relevant objective had to be stated at the level of the underlying public interest, such as the control or eradication of bovine tuberculosis in the area. Eliminating transmission from this particular animal, or obtaining post-mortem information about this particular herd, could be means to a public-health end, but were not public-health objectives in themselves.
3. The Government’s approach made slaughter effectively inevitable once the animal tested positive. It failed to identify a proper public-interest objective, failed to weigh adequately the seriousness of the religious interference, and failed to assess whether less intrusive measures could sufficiently advance the relevant objective. The statutory discretion to slaughter was thereby unlawfully eliminated.
4. Public-health protection, including animal health, was a weighty consideration, and the court should exercise caution where complex scientific evidence was evaluated by a responsible decision-maker with expert advice. That did not remove the duty to perform the balancing exercise or transfer the burden of proving proportionality away from the Government.
5. The court expressed grave doubts, on the evidence, whether slaughter would have been proportionate even if a proper objective had been identified. The Government had not properly evaluated the risks of transmission, isolation, further testing or treatment. Those observations did not determine the merits of any future decision.
6. The decisions of 3 May and 3 July 2007 were declared unlawful and quashed. The Government remained entitled, and under the statutory scheme obliged, to reconsider the matter lawfully.

This was a first-instance judicial review. Collins J ordered an expedited rolled-up hearing on 6 July 2007. The Administrative Court then granted permission, allowed the claim, declared the decisions unlawful and quashed them.