Introduction

The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the Court”) of 11th June 2026 in the case of the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses v. Italy (application no. 49687/16) marks a fundamental turning point in the protection of religious freedom and the prohibition of discrimination within the Italian legal system, recognising the serious and prolonged discrimination by the Italian State against Jehovah’s Witnesses, the country’s second-largest Christian denomination.

In considering the application lodged by the religious group on 22nd August 2016, the Court, composed of seven judges (I. Jelić as President, E. Wennerström, R. Sabato, F. Krenc, A. Chablais, A. Kučs and A. Adamska-Gallant), found that Italy had violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR): Article 14 on the prohibition of discrimination, Article 9 on freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 on the protection of property rights.

The decision raises far-reaching questions regarding the balance between state autonomy in the policy on agreements and the Convention’s obligations of neutrality and non-discrimination.

Relations between the State and confessions

Relations between the Italian State and religious denominations are governed by a constitutionally based system that distinguishes between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic religious denominations, with roots stretching back through the entire history of the Italian Republic.

At the time the Constitution was drafted (1946–1948), the relationship between the Italian State and the Catholic Church was already governed by a unique legal framework, which the framers of the Constitution sought to recognise and regulate in a distinct and clearly defined manner. For this reason, Article 7 of the Italian Constitution is dedicated to the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Italian State, recognising the two entities as mutually independent and sovereign, and referring to the Lateran Pacts of 1929, amended in 1984 by the Villa Madama Agreement, also known as the “Concordat”.

Article 8 of the Italian Constitution, on the other hand, establishes the fundamental principle of equal freedom for all religious denominations before the law. This provision grants religious denominations other than the Catholic Church organisational autonomy in accordance with their own statutes, provided that these do not conflict with the Italian legal system, and that relations between the State and religious denominations are governed by agreements, namely public-order contracts entered into between the State and specific religious bodies (distinct from the “Concordat”, as the latter is an international agreement). Such agreements may be requested by all religious bodies with legal personality that have obtained the status of “religious confession” under Law 159/1929 and its implementing regulation, Royal Decree No. 289 of 28th February 1930.

Facts of the case and the parties’ arguments 

Between 1984 and 2021, thirteen religious denominations reached an agreement with the Italian state. However, these do not include the Jehovah’s Witnesses. An agreement with this denomination was formalised in 2000 and revised in 2007, but it was never ratified by Parliament and therefore never came into force. In 2016, the government authorities refused to reopen negotiations whilst simultaneously drawing up agreements with other religious denominations.

Italy was condemned for the prolonged and unjustified exclusion of Jehovah’s Witnesses from the system of agreements with the State, which had tangible consequences, particularly with regard to public funding. Without an agreement, the religious denomination could not benefit from the “eight per thousand” allocation scheme, which is the main Italian mechanism for funding religious denominations through a share of taxpayers' income tax.

The applicants allege discriminatory treatment compared to denominations already admitted to the scheme, maintaining that the delay in concluding the agreement has had a tangible impact on religious freedom.

Italy's arguments in support of excluding the aforementioned religious denomination are based on three elements. Firstly, the past refusal to perform military service, together with the belief in abstaining from voting, has raised doubts as to the denomination’s compatibility with the civic duties incumbent upon every citizen. Secondly, the prohibition on donating and receiving blood transfusions is regarded as a risk to the health of all citizens, particularly minors.

The Court’s decision and reasoning

The Court notes that the Congregation already possesses legal personality and enjoys freedom of worship, but finds that there is unjustified unequal treatment compared with religious denominations that have concluded an agreement with the Italian State. For this reason, the Court examines the case under Article 14 of the ECHR, read in conjunction with Article 9 of the ECHR and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the ECHR, since its analysis does not concern the substance of religious freedom but rather the comparability and justification of the differential treatment (§ 27).

In order to apply Article 14, which has no independent existence and applies only if the situation falls within the scope of a substantive provision (§ 56), the Court analyses the situation under Article 9, ruling that the absence of an agreement excludes the applicants from the allocation of the “eight per thousand”, characterising this mechanism as serving to finance religious communities (§ 64, 66). Furthermore, under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the Court held that, as the agreement is the only available means of obtaining the “eight per thousand”, the Congregation’s financial interest is “sufficiently important and recognised” to constitute a right within the meaning of the first sentence of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (§ 69).

Moving on to assess whether the unequal treatment of the denomination was based on objective and reasonable grounds, the Court observed that, as the agreement procedure lacks a legislative basis (since it consists of a mere administrative practice), the process is subject to a risk of arbitrariness (§ 80) dependent entirely on government initiative and the purely discretionary will of Parliament (§ 79).

The Court then examined whether the deadlock over the agreement was supported by objective and reasonable grounds. Despite the wide margin of appreciation accorded to the State, the justifications put forward are deemed insufficient for various reasons:

• Contradiction on the part of the State (§ 90): the Congregation’s position on blood transfusions had long been known to the Italian Government and Parliament, and this had not prevented either the recognition of legal personality or the signing of the text of the agreement.
• Lack of evidence regarding public health (§ 91, 93): the Government has not provided evidence to demonstrate that the refusal to donate or receive blood transfusions posed a threat to public health.
• Internal consistency of the legal system (§ 92): the Italian judicial system already possesses the tools to safeguard adults’ right to self-determination in health matters and provides for judicial oversight in the case of minors.
• Conscientious objection and voting (§ 94): the Court notes that compulsory military service has been suspended in Italy since 2005 and that abstention from voting and the applicants’ doctrinal positions do not violate domestic law.

In the absence of an objective and reasonable justification capable of legitimising the difference in treatment, the Court finds a violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 9 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (§ 95).

The Court, however, rejected the Congregation’s claim for pecuniary damages (in excess of 200 million euros), not because it was unfounded in principle, but due to the absence of a causal link. This reasoning is directly linked to the nature of the violation found: since the Court criticised the absence of procedural safeguards and the lack of merit in the reasons given, and did not find that the agreement would have been concluded in the absence of discrimination, it cannot speculate on the outcome the proceedings would otherwise have had (§ 107). The Court, however, orders Italy to pay the applicant 10,000 euros in compensation for non-pecuniary damage (§ 109) and 8,000 euros in respect of costs and fees (§ 112).

Case law cited by the Court

To place the judgment within a coherent body of case law, and to respond specifically to the Italian Government's justifications, the Court refers to precedents concerning religious freedom and non-discrimination. These references are not merely illustrative; they enable the Court to distinguish the Italian case from superficially similar cases and clarify the limits of the state's margin of appreciation in matters of religious recognition.

The cases of Jehovah’s Witnesses of Moscow and Others v. Russia (2010) and Taganrog LRO and Others v. Russia (2022) are cited in response to the Italian Government’s objections regarding Jehovah’s Witnesses' beliefs concerning blood transfusions and civic duties. The Court refers to these cases, arguing that it has already dealt with similar matters. However, while the Russian cases concerned the dissolution or prohibition of a religious group, the Italian case concerns “merely” differential treatment with regard to access to tax benefits (“eight per thousand” scheme). Referring to these cases emphasises that, although the beliefs in question are well known, they cannot justify financial discrimination unless a genuine risk to public health is proven.

The cases of Magyar Keresztény Mennonita Egyház and Others v. Hungary (2014) and Association «Romuva» v. Lithuania (2021) establish the parameters for state oversight, which must be both neutral and impartial. In particular, the Court uses these precedents to condemn systems in which the recognition of a religion depends on the purely discretionary will of political authorities, such as the government or parliament, without clear and predictable criteria. The Court defines such a regime as inherently risky due to its arbitrariness.

The Assemblée chrétienne des Témoins de Jéhovah d’Anderlecht v. Belgium (2022) case is one of the cornerstones of the judgment. It indicates that, while the Convention does not oblige a State to grant tax privileges to religions, if it does so, it may not adopt discriminatory measures. The Court uses this precedent to criticise Italy's lack of a clear legislative framework and effective remedies for religious denominations whose applications for tax-exempt status are rejected.

Taken together, these points highlight three key concepts:

• The existence of a “European standard": the Court is applying uniform criteria to various member states (Italy, Belgium, Hungary and Lithuania) to ensure that religious minorities are not financially penalised for being non-traditional.
• The law takes precedence over political discretion. By referring to cases in which national parliaments had acted with full political autonomy, the Court made it clear that not even the legislature can act without limits when it comes to religion. Political decisions in this area must also comply with the prohibition of discrimination set out in Article 14 of the Convention.
• There has been a shift in focus from the protection of “existence” to the protection of “equality”. Whilst past cases often concerned the right to exist (as in the Russian cases), today, the “frontier” of religious freedom has shifted towards ensuring equal access to state privileges. The Court states that a prolonged inability to conclude an agreement (in the Italian case, over 40 years) without objective grounds constitutes a violation of the right to respect for property combined with religious freedom.

Conclusions

The judgement affects the delicate balance between the autonomy granted to the State in managing its policy on religious agreements and the treaty obligations of non-discrimination and religious neutrality, raising questions about the need to reform the procedure to make it more transparent and less subject to political discretion.

The ruling also lends itself to interpretation in terms of internal constitutional consistency: Article 19 of the Italian Constitution enshrines the freedom to profess one’s religious faith, to propagate it and to practise it individually or in association with others, a principle which the twenty-year stalemate over the agreement with the Jehovah’s Witnesses appears to have applied inconsistently compared with other faiths. In this sense, the Court’s judgment invites us to question the viability of a system in which the substantive recognition of freedom of worship does not automatically translate into equal access to the public support mechanisms provided for in Article 8.

As clarified in the joint concurring opinion of Justices Krenc and Chablais, the Court’s decision should not be understood as a judgement on the content of the faith professed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but rather as a criticism of the manner in which the Italian State has managed the agreement procedure, resulting in unequal treatment lacking any objective and reasonable justification.

Alessandro Bertini, national spokesperson for Jehovah’s Witnesses, stated in the Congregation’s official statement issued following the judgement: “We are grateful for this decision, which brings relief after many years of waiting. Jehovah’s Witnesses have always respected the law, and the Court has now confirmed their right to equal treatment”.