ABSTRACT
The protection of fundamental rights has become a cornerstone of modern-day liberal democracy. Constitutions today often start by enumerating the rights that they seek to affirm and protect before paying attention to questions of institutional design and competence for instance. The effect is to imply that the right to freedom of religion also encompasses a negative freedom, thereby affirming Darby v. Sweden and the gist of the other arguments employed in this discussion. On the Chamber's interpretation, the negative freedom of religion it describes forms a part of the scope of the right and thus one of the positive freedoms that a bearer may claim. Explained differently, a right to claim the absence of religion in relation to the state has now become a part of the right to freedom of religion in addition to the earlier discussed positive freedoms of belief, observance, teaching, and propagation.
