Le statut des cultes reconnus et de la laïcité en Belgique

Introduction

Over time, Belgian law has granted the status of recognised denomination to six religious groups : Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Judaism, the Orthodox faith and Islam. The recognition opens access to a special regime of financial support for the religion, chaplaincies and religious education.
Until recently, the Law of 4 March 1870 on the temporal aspects of religion was considered to be the basic law on recognised religions. This law specified at the beginning how four religions - Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican and Jewish – were to be regulated. Two other groups were then recognised following an amendment to this law : Islam (in 1974) and the Orthodox faith (in 1985). It should be mentioned that the Roman Catholic church was used as a model and benchmark for the development of the legal status of the other recognised religions.
The first four denominations are organised according to the areas covered by the municipalities. The last two - the Orthodox and Muslim faiths - are organised into areas covering one or several provinces and, additionally, the Brussels-Capital district.
Currently, the establishment and organisation of communities comes under the scope of regional authorities following the Law of 13 July 2001. The Law of 1870 was amended by the regional authorities in Brussels-Capital. In Flanders, a new decree manages the administration of these communities.

Procedures for federal recognition

The recognition of religions is still a federal responsibility. Once a religious group or a denominational community has been officially considered as a denomination (in most cases following a judgement), this group can be “recognised”.
In order to proceed with recognising a denomination, the Ministry of Justice refers to five “conditions” which were made explicit during several parliamentary questions :
1. having enough followers (several tens of thousands) ;
2. being structured ;
3. having been established in the country long enough (several decades) ;
4. being of social interest ;
5. not developing any activity that might go against the social order.
The lawmaker may check the features listed, but must refrain from making value judgements or judgements about the truth value of religion.

Secularism

In early 1980, the Justice Minister, Van Elslande, proposed organising the recognition of the group asking for the recognition of secularism in three steps :
– allocating a subsidy for the year 1980 ;
– passing a law legalising the annual allocation of such a grant ;
– recognising secularism definitively.

The Law of 23 January 1981 on the granting of subsidies to non-confessional, philosophical communities in Belgium, introduced payment to the Central Lay Council (CCL) of an annual subsidy with expected yearly growth of 10%.
In 1993, a second paragraph was added to Article 181 of the Constitution, making the Treasury responsible for salaries and pensions of lay delegates.
And in the Law of 21 June 2002 on the Central Council of philosophical, non-denominational Communities in Belgium and on delegates and institutions managing material and financial interests of recognised non-denominational, philosophical communities, secularism obtained a status similar to that of the recognised religions.
Meanwhile, while legislation on the temporal aspects of religion was regionalised during the state reform of 2001, the legal framework for the secular group itself remains federal.