Which constitutional right is an exemption request related to?
Article 24 of the Constitution protects freedom of religion and conscience. The fourth paragraph of the article provides that religious culture and moral education shall be among the compulsory lessons in primary and secondary schools, while religious education and instruction outside this is made subject to the individual's own wish and, for minors, to the request of their legal representatives. Article 12 of the Basic Law on National Education No. 1739 (Millî Eğitim Temel Kanunu) likewise takes secularism as its basis and provides for compulsory religious culture instruction.
The legal distinction here is between acquiring knowledge about religions and being directed toward adopting the teachings of a particular belief. The right of parents to demand respect for their religious and philosophical convictions in education and teaching does not remove the State’s duty in the field of education. Nevertheless, in regulating educational content, the State must take into account pluralism and individuals’ freedom in the sphere of belief. The decision examined dealt with this safeguard within the fourth paragraph of Article 24 of the Constitution.
Is compulsory religious culture instruction the same as religious education?
The Court’s sentence setting out the distinction directly is as follows:
“The purpose of this compulsory course is to provide students with general information about religions and to give them a general culture.”
Direct quotation: Constitutional Court, Hüseyin El and Nazlı Şirin El [GK], Application No. 2014/15345, April 7, 2022, § 164. Full text of the decision.
According to this explanation, whether a course stays within the limits of religious culture instruction must be assessed through its content. The name of the curriculum, or the administration’s description of the program as a culture course, is not sufficient on its own. For content that turns into education and instruction in a particular religion, voluntariness and the will of the parents acquire separate constitutional importance. This is the legal characterization drawn from the reasoning in §§ 163–170 of the decision.
Does every objection of a parent give rise to a right of exemption?
The Court did not require that every personal preference of a parent regarding the curriculum be met. Nor does the allocation of more space to the religion prevalent in a country show, on its own, that the whole of the instruction is contrary to constitutional safeguards. The review focuses on whether the course is presented in general in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner and whether the line of imposing a particular belief has been crossed. For this reason, an abstract statement such as "I do not like the content of the course" is not the same as an allegation that the specific program is contrary to constitutional criteria. (Constitutional Court, §§ 163–172.)
What happened in the Hüseyin El and Nazlı Şirin El application?
On 1/10/2009, Hüseyin El requested that his daughter, who was then in the fourth grade of primary school, be exempted from the Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge course. The administration rejected the request on the basis of the exception, applied at the time, provided for students who documented that they were Christian or Jewish. After an annulment decision given at the first stage in the administrative courts, different assessments were made, and the rejection act was ultimately not removed. The applicants brought the dispute to the Constitutional Court by way of individual application.
The incident also described the family’s transactions concerning the religion field in the population registry. However, this feature of the incident cannot be read to mean that everyone seeking an exemption today must change their religion record. The account of the facts in the decision and the Court’s general legal criterion are different things. The criterion the Court adopted is that a person should not be compelled to reveal their belief and should have an effective option when faced with content amounting to religious education.
The Court stated that the violation caused by the administrative rejection act was not remedied by the lower courts either. The discussion is therefore not limited to the obligation of the administration that prepares the curriculum. The courts examining the application must also assess the constitutional objections raised on the basis of the specific program and exemption system. (Constitutional Court, facts section and §§ 171–195, 204.)
Can a person be asked to disclose their belief for an exemption?
Paragraph 169 of the decision explains that parents who do not wish to have their child take a course that could be considered within religious education and instruction may be offered exemption, an alternative course, or the option of whether or not to enroll in the course. These options are not the same method; their common aim is to make the parents’ constitutional right usable in practice.
The Court found that requiring parents to justify their religious or philosophical beliefs, or to submit information and documents about them, in order to benefit from these options was incompatible with the safeguard against being compelled to reveal one’s beliefs. The exemption mechanism must not turn into an inquiry that obliges a person to prove which religion he or she belongs to. This legal assessment rests on § 170.
Two matters should be distinguished here. Identifying the academic year, class, course and rejection act that are the subject of the application is a procedural need. By contrast, forcing a person to document the truth or sincerity of their inner world of belief is a different interference. Stating which act an application is directed against does not create an obligation to disclose convictions that are under constitutional protection.
The judgment and its limits
The Plenary Assembly of the Constitutional Court held by majority that the right of parents to demand respect for their religious and philosophical convictions in education and teaching had been violated. The finding of violation concerns the fourth paragraph of Article 24 of the Constitution. The existence of dissenting opinions means that the majority judgment should not be reported as though it had been given unanimously. The decision contains different distributions of dissenting opinions on admissibility and on the merits.
| Subject examined | Result in the decision |
|---|---|
| Right of parents to respect for their convictions | Violation; by majority |
| Complaint of trial within a reasonable time | Inadmissible because remedies had not been exhausted |
| Retrial | Assessment that there was no legal interest because the student had moved on to university |
| Non-pecuniary damages | Net TL 20,000 to the applicants jointly |
| Other claims for compensation | Rejected |
TL 20,000 is not an amount awarded to each applicant separately. It is the joint non-pecuniary damages for the specific application on the date of the decision; it cannot be used as a tariff or as a certain result for current applications. Litigation costs are a separate item of the judgment, apart from the compensation. One copy of the decision was sent, for information, to the Council of State (Danıştay) and the Ministry of National Education, and also to the Ministry of Justice. (Constitutional Court, §§ 204–207 and judgment.)
What was said about the programs from 2018–2019 onward?
The time limit in the decision is particularly clear:
“For this reason, the DKAB programs put into effect from the 2018-2019 academic year onward have not been examined in this decision.”
Direct quotation: Constitutional Court, Hüseyin El and Nazlı Şirin El [GK], Application No. 2014/15345, April 7, 2022, § 173. Full text of the decision.
The fact that Nazlı Şirin El began university studies in 2018 determined the temporal limit of the review. For this reason, the decision cannot be presented as a finding of violation concerning any program taught in 2026 without examining the content of that program. The same constitutional principles may be argued in new disputes; however, the program and textbook applied in the relevant academic year must be set out separately.
Abdurrahman Hendek’s academic study of the decision likewise draws attention to the current program remaining outside the assessment and to the method of curriculum review. This is an assessment in the scholarly literature; it does not replace the Court’s judgment. Separating the sources in this way prevents the limit of currency from being overlooked. (Hendek, 2022, abstract and assessment sections of the article.)
How is a current exemption dispute assessed?
The academic year and the reason for rejection should be made concrete
In the legal assessment, the student’s grade, the relevant curriculum, the textbook used, the exemption application and the administration’s reply must first be examined together. Where objections to particular parts of the course rest on old books that are no longer used, the substance of the dispute becomes unclear. If there is an allegation about how the course is actually taught, its supporting evidence must also be assessed separately.
It matters who made the application and in what capacity. The parent’s own constitutional right and violations asserted on behalf of the child must not be confused. The custody and representation position should be established according to the features of the file. The admissibility discussions in the decision show that procedure cannot be treated afterward as a minor detail.
Administrative suit and individual application periods are separate
Under Article 7 of Law No. 2577, the general period for administrative suits for which no special period is provided is sixty days; the period, as a rule, starts the day after written notification. As regards the administration’s failure to respond, Article 10 provides for implied rejection after thirty days. There are separate provisions for non-definitive replies and for replies given later. For this reason, it would not be correct in every file to calculate simply by adding sixty days to the application date.
An application made within the suit period under Article 11 for withdrawal or modification of an existing act may stop the running period; after rejection or implied rejection, the remaining period continues to run. It should not be accepted that the application automatically creates a new sixty-day period. While the school term continues, a request for stay of execution is assessed by showing together the manifest unlawfulness and the damage difficult or impossible to compensate under Article 27. Filing suit does not, on its own, suspend the obligation to take the course.
An individual application to the Constitutional Court, as a rule, comes into question after effective ordinary remedies have been exhausted. The thirty-day period in Article 47 of Law No. 6216 differs from the administrative suit period. Which right was violated and which remedy is to be exhausted must be determined separately.
Conclusion
On exemption from the Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge course, the decisive criterion is whether the course remains, in the constitutional sense, within the limits of cultural instruction and whether effective options securing respect for parents’ convictions exist. The Hüseyin El and Nazlı Şirin El decision found a violation with respect to the old program and exemption system examined. The decision neither abolished compulsory culture instruction nor reached an advance judgment on all later programs. A current dispute should be built on the content for the relevant academic year, the reason for rejection and the procedural conditions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did the Constitutional Court exempt all students from the religion course?
No. The decision examined the dispute of the particular applicants and the programs applied to them. There is no provision abolishing the course in general or exempting all students automatically. For details, see the section on the judgment and its limits.
Must a family seeking exemption document its religion?
The Court found that making options for opting out of content amounting to religious education conditional on something that compels a person to reveal his or her religious or philosophical belief is incompatible with the constitutional safeguard. This principle is explained in the section on exemption and disclosure of belief.
Was the decision given for the curriculum taught in 2026?
No. The Court expressly left the programs applied from the 2018–2019 academic year onward outside the review. The current program must be assessed separately. The relevant explanation is in the section on the temporal scope of the programs.
Why was no retrial held in this application?
Because the student had moved on to university and was no longer required to take the course, no legal interest was seen in a retrial. Instead, joint compensation was awarded for the non-pecuniary damage that could not be remedied by the finding of violation. The table of the judgment shows this distinction.
Does the course obligation stop automatically when an exemption application is made?
No. Neither filing an application nor filing suit produces this result on its own. The status of the administrative act and, if needed, the conditions for a stay of execution are assessed separately. See the section on application periods.
Sources
Constitutional Court, Hüseyin El and Nazlı Şirin El [GK], Application No. 2014/15345, April 7, 2022; in particular §§ 163–174, 195, 204–207 and the judgment. Official link to the decision. Access to the full text was also verified through the De Jure decision record.
Constitutional Court, Qualified Rights Decision Summaries (Nitelikli Haklar Karar Özetleri), printed pp. 123–124. Source book. The book is a starting source; direct quotations were taken from the full text of the decision.
Constitution of the Republic of Türkiye, Arts. 13, 24 and 42. Official text of the Constitutional Court.
Basic Law on National Education No. 1739, Art. 12. Official legislation text.
Law No. 2577 on Administrative Procedure, Arts. 7, 10, 11 and 27. Official legislation text.
Law No. 6216 on the Establishment and Rules of Procedure of the Constitutional Court, Arts. 45, 47 and 50. Official text of the Constitutional Court.
Hendek, Abdurrahman, An Examination of the Constitutional Court’s Hüseyin El and Nazlı Şirin El Decision (Anayasa Mahkemesi’nin Hüseyin El ve Nazlı Şirin El Kararı Üzerine Bir İnceleme), Talim, 6(2), 2022. Academic publication. A source from the scholarly literature; it is not a judicial decision.