Belgium's Highest Court Upholds Jehovah's Witnesses' Acquittal Over Shunning

Belgium's Court of Cassation, the country's highest court, on 19 December 2023 rejected the final appeals and definitively upheld the acquittal of the Jehovah's Witnesses over their practice of shunning former members. The ruling ended the long-running "Ghent case," a prosecution that had produced a criminal conviction and a fine before it was reversed on appeal.

The Court held that the Witnesses' practice of limiting contact with disfellowshipped former members falls within freedom of religion and freedom of association, according to reporting by Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) and Bitter Winter, two religious-liberty outlets that followed the case.^[1][2]

The three-stage case

The dispute moved through three levels of the Belgian courts over nearly three years.

On 16 March 2021, the correctional court in Ghent ruled against the Belgian Association of Jehovah's Witnesses, finding that the shunning practice amounted to discrimination and incitement to hatred against former members. The court imposed a fine, reported by secondary sources at 12,000 euros.^[2][3] Earlier characterizations describing a roughly 96,000-euro penalty refer to figures cited during the litigation; the fine reported at first instance was 12,000 euros.

On 7 June 2022, the Ghent Court of Appeal overturned that decision and fully acquitted the association of all charges, applying case law from the European Court of Human Rights.^[1][4]

The Court of Cassation then rejected the remaining appeals on 19 December 2023, affirming the acquittal. Among those who had appealed were UNIA, Belgium's inter-federal anti-discrimination centre, which had joined the case as a civil party, and hostile former members.^[2]

How the court reasoned

The Court examined the claim under Article 8 (private and family life) and Article 9 (freedom of religion) of the European Convention on Human Rights, according to Bitter Winter's account of the ruling.^[2]

On Article 8, the Court held that the provision did not apply, reasoning that the Witnesses' shunning "does not extend to cohabiting spouses and children."^[2]

On Article 9, the Court found that feeling "aggrieved, hurt or socially isolated" by the shunning policy "is not sufficient to neutralize the effect of Article 9 ECHR."^[2] The underlying principle the Court affirmed was the right to choose one's own associations:

Scope of the ruling

The decision addressed a specific legal question: whether the shunning practice constituted unlawful discrimination or incitement to hatred under Belgian criminal law. The Court found no criminal liability. It did not rule on whether the practice is harmful or on its effect on those subjected to it.

The Belgian outcome is the definitive close of a thread that other Jehovah's Witnesses legal matters across Europe have referenced. HRWF and Bitter Winter, both broadly sympathetic to the Witnesses in religious-liberty cases, reported the dates and the court's quoted reasoning; their factual account of the chronology is corroborated by European Times and the Brussels Times.^[1][2][3][4]