Government-sponsored Religious Education in Hong Kong after the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong v Secretary for Justice

In 2004, Hong Kong’s Education Ordinance (Cap 279) was amended to mandate ‘school-based management’ in most schools that received funds from the government.1 The practical effect of the amendments was the decentralization of the levels of authority from the school sponsoring bodies to the school level. The number of managers nominated by school sponsoring bodies now cannot exceed 60 per cent of the maximum number of managers allotted to the school’s governing committee (known as an ‘incorporated management committee’) under its constitution.2 Catholic bishop Joseph Zen alleged that the amendments were a ‘conspiracy’ by the government to wrest control of Catholic schools from the Church.3 The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong brought a suit to challenge the constitutionality of the amendments. The Church lost its case in both the Court of First Instance and in the Court of Appeal, and it then appealed to the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal. In October 2011, the Court of Final Appeal affirmed the judgment of the lower courts in the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong v Secretary for Justice,4 holding that there was no violation of either Article 136(1) or Article 141(3) of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s de facto constitution. However, the court interpreted the Basic Law in such a way that it was unconstitutional for the government to ban schools prayers and religious classes in publicly funded schools run by religious organizations.

Appeal · Constitution · Constitutionality · Economic Justice · Establishment Clause · First amendment · Government (linguistics) · Mandate · Political science · Religious education · Sociology · Supreme court · Law · Public Administration · Religious Freedom and Discrimination

• Religious education programme of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong

  Thomas Kwan-Choi Tse, Thomas Kwan Choi Tse•Journal of Beliefs and Values•2015

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