ACLU of North Carolina Applauds Court Ruling Preventing Religious Discrimination in the Courtroom (5/24/2007)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
Judge Says Multiple Religious Texts Must Be Allowed For Swearing-In
Proceedings
RALEIGH – The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina today
applauded a ruling by Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway requiring that people
of non-Christian faiths must be allowed to use religious texts other than the
Christian Bible when being sworn in as jurors or witnesses in state court
proceedings.
Judge Ridgeway wrote: “The highest aim of every legal contest is the search
for the truth. To require pious and faithful practitioners of religions
other than Christianity to swear oaths in a form other than the form most
meaningful to them would thwart the search for the truth.”
The lawsuit was originally filed in July 2005 in Superior Court in Wake
County on behalf of the ACLU of North Carolina’s statewide membership of
approximately 8,000 individuals of many different faiths, including Islam and
Judaism.
In November 2005, the ACLU added another plaintiff to the case, Syidah
Mateen, a Muslim woman who was denied the option of using the Quran when she was
being sworn in as a witness in a court proceeding in Guilford County. She
was told that the only holy text used in the courtroom is the King James Version
of the Bible. A superior court judge dismissed the ACLU’s lawsuit in
December 2005, ruling that neither Mateen nor the ACLU could present a “case or
controversy” that was ripe for judicial review. But in January 2007, a
unanimous North Carolina Court of Appeals overturned that dismissal and ruled
that the case could go forward.
“Today’s court ruling makes it clear that the government cannot favor one set
of religious values over another and must allow all individuals of faith to be
sworn in on the holy text that is in accordance with their faith,” said Jennifer
Rudinger, Executive Director of the ACLU of North Carolina. “By allowing
only the Christian Bible to be used in the administration of religious oaths in
the courtroom, the state had been discriminating against people of non-Christian
faiths, such as Syidah Mateen.”
The ACLU lawsuit sought a court order clarifying that phrase “Holy
Scriptures” in state law is broad enough to allow the use of multiple religious
texts in addition to the Christian Bible in the administration of courtroom
oaths. While declining to interpret the phrase “Holy Scriptures” to be so
inclusive, Judge Ridgeway looked to centuries of well-settled North Carolina
case law and wrote an 18-page opinion stating that in the interest of justice,
all people of faith must be allowed to be sworn in on the holy text that is in
accordance with their faith and that the scripture requirement is merely one of
many ways in which oaths may be administered in North Carolina.
“Today’s ruling is a very important victory for all people of faith in North
Carolina,” said Seth Cohen, General Counsel for the ACLU of North Carolina. and
lead counsel in this case. “When the government gets involved in playing
favorites among religions, all religious freedom is jeopardized.”
Existing North Carolina statutes also allow for the use of a religious oath
to be sworn “with upraised hand,” without the use of any religious text, and for
the use of a secular oath such that the word “affirm” replaces the word “swear”
and the words “so help me God” are deleted. The ACLU lawsuit did not
concern either of these two options and addressed only the use of a religious
oath that also involves the use of a religious text, as codified in N.C.G.S. §
11 2 and as previously interpreted by state judges to allow only the King James
Version of the Bible to be used.
The state has 30 days to decide whether to appeal today’s ruling.
Judge Ridgeway’s ruling is online at: www.aclu.org/religion/govtfunding/29873lgl20070524.html
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