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10 January 2014
Issue: 7589 / Categories: Case law , Law reports
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Religion—Definition of “place of meeting for religious worship”—Registration of place for marriage ceremony

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R (on the application of Hodkin and another) v Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages [2013] UKSC 77, [2013] All ER (D) 100 (Dec)

Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger P, Lord Clarke, Lord Wilson, Lord Reed and Lord Toulson SCJJ, 11 December 2013

A Scientology chapel is a “place of meeting for religious worship” within the meaning of s 2 of the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855 (PWRA 1855); religion for the purposes of the Act may be described as a spiritual or non-secular belief system, held by a group of adherents, which claimed to explain mankind’s place in the universe and relationship with the infinite, and to teach its adherents how they were to live their lives in conformity with the spiritual understanding associated with the belief system. 

Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC and Naina Patel (instructed by Withers LLP) for the appellants. James Strachan QC (instructed by Treasury Solicitors) for the respondent.

The first appellant was a Scientologist. She and her fiancé, A, also a Scientologist,

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