Exeter Christian Union Takes Legal Action

The Executive Committee of the Exeter University Evangelical Christian Union issued proceedings this week in the High Court seeking a Judicial Review of the decision to suspend the Christian Union from the Guild of Students.

Such acts by the Guild violate the rights of association of religious bodies and representing religious animus, according to the Christian students at Exeter University.

They are the first in the UK to take legal action under the Human Rights Act against their Student Guild and University.

The Court will be asked to quash the decision to suspend. The committee has also instructed Paul Diamond, a leading Civil Rights Barrister to represent them.

The action was taken after the students advised both the Guild and the university authorities that it had failed to support their right as Christians to the freedoms of speech, belief and association.

The 50-year-old Christian Union (CU) at Exeter University is currently suspended from the official list of student societies on campus, has had its Student Union bank account frozen, and has been banned from free use of Student Guild premises, or advertising events within Guild facilities, because the Student Guild claims the CU constitution and activities do not conform to its Equal Opportunties Policies, which have only recently been introduced.

A Letter before Action to the Guild, and to the University's Registrar was served, on behalf of the whole Christian Union in December, advising that proceedings would commence unless the Exeter Christian Union was fully re-instated as a student society by the Guild with full rights and was allowed to call itself the Christian Union.

The Guild has refused to reinstate, and therefore the Evangelical CU has advised that their action will be taken under the Human Rights Act 1998, and the Education (No.2) Act 1986.

Ben Martin, a member of the CU committee in Exeter said: "Legal action was the very last thing we wanted to take.

"We are all students trying to concentrate on our studies, but the action by the Guild, in blatant infringement of our rights, and their reluctance to reinstate us, has left us with no alternative."

The Guild had suggested to the CU that mediation and negotiation might help, but the CU is adamant that when it comes to fundamental human rights, "there is nothing to mediate or negotiate about," added Mr Martin.

He stressed, however, that if the Guild had reinstated the CU as a full society, then he and others would have been happy to meet with the Guild and look afresh at how its Equal Opportunities policies related to religious societies.

The CU expects a first hearing of the case in the High Court in London around March or April.