Journal of Law Religion and State - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2017

This paper explores the reasons for proscribed sanctions and their effects on contemporary Ghana. I contend that the sacred office of the Ghanaian chief, which is legitimated by spiritual and legal norms, plays an ambivalent role in Ghana’s legal and political modernization. Using banishment as a case study, the paper pays attentions to how the continued use of proscribed sanctions, among other chiefly actions, raises an ambivalent challenge to Ghana’s laws, its sovereignty, and its commitment to human rights. I propose actions that may aid the state in overcoming these challenges and successfully integrating modern norms with ancient traditional values.

It is widely recognized that the secular Indian state unlike its Western counterpart does not follow the strict separation of religion and state, opting to intervene in the domain of religion by treating religions equally. This article examines how the concept of equal treatment of religions is applied in the legal domain by an intellectual history of the Ayodhya litigation and argues that the courts cannot treat religions equally due to the incompatible nature of the claims made by the parties i.e. the history of religion claim of the Hindus vis-a-vis the property rights claim of the Muslims. Departing significantly from the current consensus about the litigation being characterized by defective legal interpretation and political influences, it further argues that the real legal challenge in resolving this dispute is addressing the theological frameworks within modern property law which are dependent on a set of normative inferences embedded in colonial discourse.

Religion and state, more specifically religion and law, and religion and education are sub-fields that have received considerable scholarly attention. The interstices between these fields have been much less scrutinized, although it is within these spaces where the particular normativities produced and managed by state, law, and religion can be critically assessed, and where the nature of their interaction can be evaluated. We examine the intersecting normativities of religion with the secular public sphere, with education, and with the law, and their discursive fields with respect to the Programme d’Éthique et culture religieuse (ECR) of the Québec Ministry of Education. The distinct interests associated with these discursive fields meet at bases of common concern: religious pluralism, accommodation, and social cohesion. A common discourse emerges here that is informed by what critics identify as the World Religions Paradigm (WRP). Rather than examine the ECR simply with respect to its dependence on the WRP, we show how the discourses of the general public, education, and law in Québec and Canada meet to reinforce the WRP to produce a singular normativity that determines the shape of public discourses and representations of religion. In its effort to manage religious freedom and promote multiculturalism, the state (legislatively, legally, and educationally) generates the concrete terms by which citizens are to enact both. The logic of the overlapping normativities in the management of religious freedom and promotion of religious pluralism by the state creates the concrete terms by which religious identity and citizenship are defined.