Justices overturn Scientology religion ruling

Scientology is a religion and the chapel of the Church of Scientology in London is a place of worship, the Supreme Court has held.

Louisa Hodkin and her fiancé, Alessandro Calcioli, were unable to marry at their church of choice because the Registrar-General of Births, Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales refused to register the church on the grounds it was not “a place of meeting for religious worship”.

However, the Court disagreed, in Hodkin & Anor, R (on the application of) v Registrar-General [2013] UKSC 77.

In doing so, it overturned a ruling more than four decades old, R v Registrar General, Ex p Segerdal [1970] 2 QB 697 in which the Court of Appeal held in a similar case that a different church within the Church of Scientology was not a “place of meeting for religious worship” within the meaning of s 2 of the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855.

Paul Hewitt, partner at Withers, who acted for Hodkin, says: “The Supreme Court’s judgment is a victory for the equal treatment of religions in the modern world.  

“We are delighted at the outcome—it always felt wrong that Louisa was denied the simple right, afforded to members of other religions, to enjoy a legal marriage ceremony in her own Church.”