Re-reading Neulinger and Shuruk v. Switzerland: Bringing the Religious Dimension into View

Abstract

Abstract This Article offers an anthropologically informed rereading of the landmark case Neulinger and Shuruk v. Switzerland, decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2010. This rereading is undertaken by “going beyond judgments” temporally—i.e., reconstructing the case from its origins to present—and spatially—i.e., looking at different sources of data and putting them into conversation with one another. This approach draws on anthropology both conceptually and methodologically. Not only does it address “case law” and “litigation” as creations of a variety of social and legal agents, constantly and meaningfully interacting with one another, but it also adopts a “litigant’s perspective” and creates space for acknowledging aspects of the lived experience of the applicants that have been marginalized in legal reasoning. By doing so, this Article shows that, from being strongly imbued with religious considerations, Neulinger and Shuruk came to assume a neutral framing when entering and progressing through the ECtHR. “Going beyond judgments” ultimately foregrounds the image of the Court as an institution addressing and doing different things to different audiences and stakeholders, and showcases some of the ways through which multi-perspectivity and efforts to “humanize the law” may be incorporated into case-law analyses.