UPDATE: Children & Religious Upbringing

In August 2012, I wrote about a judge’s decision in relation to the religious upbringing of a child whose parents (one Jewish and the other Christian) disagreed on the matter. The Court of Appeal has recently revisited this topic in the case of Re G(Children) (Education: Religious Upbringing).  In this case both parents were orthodox Jews but the father wanted the children to continue their education at an ultra-orthodox school while the mother wanted them to attend a less orthodox co-educational school with, she argued, superior education opportunities.  The father was appealing a decision in the mother’s favour.

Lord Justice Munby, acting as a ‘judicial reasonable parent’, dismissed the father’s appeal concluding that the trial judge had been right to find that the mother’s choice of school better served the best interests of the children.  Munby LJ justified his decision by saying that the more liberal school, with superior educational opportunities, would better prepare the children to make their own decisions as to how they would want to live their lives once they reached adulthood.