More than two centuries after the Enlightenment, fierce debates on the place of religion in public life remain commonplace in Europe. Faced with increasing demands by members of minority religions, many European States are struggling to get to grips with seemingly insurmountable disagreements on the proper role of (freedom of) religion in the continent’s pluralistic societies. Against a secular backdrop that has traditionally emphasised a strict division between public and private life, several States have resorted to measures that—quite literally—focus on hiding the problem from sight. Think for instance of the ban on face-covering veils in France and Belgium, the Swiss ban on the construction of minarets, or legislation in several countries prohibiting the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in public institutions. It is no coincidence that these measures almost invariably target Muslims, since it are primarily their demands to be able to manifest their religious beliefs in public that challenge the dominant, secular understanding of the public space in many European States.

As a supranational court, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR; the Court) has played a central role in the legal debate on the place of religious freedom in Europe’s pluralistic democracies. It has dealt, inter alia, with cases involving criminal conviction of military officers of the Greek air force, members of the Pentecostal Church, for proselytism; 1 dismissal of a Swiss public schoolteacher for wearing the Islamic headscarf in class; 2 the banning of a