On March 18, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Italian public schools can continue to display crucifixes in classrooms, overturning an earlier decision that declared them to be a human rights violation.

The 17 judges of the Grand Chamber meeting in Strasbourg, by 15 votes to two, ruled that there had been “no violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 (right to education) to the European Convention on Human Rights”. The Grand Chamber’s ruling is final.

Their decision concludes a five-year legal battle that began in 2006, when an Italian mother of two non-Catholic students complained to the court that the crucifix displayed in classrooms were a form of involuntary religious indoctrination.

In a summary of the Grand Chamber’s ruling, Court Registrar Erik Fribergh explained that the judges had found “nothing to suggest that the authorities were intolerant of pupils who believed in other religions, were non-believers or who held non-religious philosophical convictions”.

We should welcome this landmark decision, which means that crucifixes can continue to be displayed in schools and other public buildings.