RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION BEFORE THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS Moving Forward a New Approach Towards Religious Minorities ?

European case law has extensively analysed the relationship between public institutions and the wearing of religious attire in a plurality of cases, emphasising diff erent competing readings of secularism and the public sphere . Although we are experiencing a return of the religious factor within the public arena, the increasing tension between demands of ‘ deep diversity ’ and new forms of ‘ secular anxiety ’ give rise to the need to implement new mechanisms and techniques of management of religious-cultural pluralism . In common law legal contexts, the concept of ‘ reasonable accommodation ’ arises as an eff ort by public or private actors to adjust their general rules or practices in view of the specifi c needs of minority identities. On the other hand, in the European context, where religious diversity and the demands of new minorities are still widely perceived as a controversial issue rather than as a driving force for new social dynamics, the ‘ transplantation ’ of the notion of reasonable accommodation is still controversial. Starting from two recent ECtHR judgments ( Hamidovi ć v Bosnia and Herzegovina and Lachiri v Belgium ) concerning the freedom to wear religious attire in the courtroom (where the ECtHR showed a renewed sensitivity towards the status of religious-cultural minorities and the search for new eff ective strategies for their full ‘ incorporation ’ into host societies), the present contribution will investigate whether reasonable accommodation is possible in the ECHR framework, and whether reasonable accommodation may be an eff ective means to implement a more substantial equality, in the pursuit of the integration of religious minorities . Last but not least, the present contribution aims to assess whether the concept of religious accommodation allows an appropriate balance between religious neutrality policies and new claims of ‘ deep diversity ’ , and how it can reasonably interact with the diffi cult European balance between ‘ unity ’ and ‘ diversity.