During the COVID-19 lockdown the initial British Government mantra of ‘Stay home. Protect the NHS. Save lives’, the ritualistic weekly public clapping for the National Health Service (NHS) and the overall tone of the media coverage led several commentators to raise the question of whether the NHS had become a religion. This question is legally significant. The question of whether the lockdown breached Article 9 has already been the subject of litigation. R (on the application of Hussain) v Secretary of State for Health [2020] EWHC 1392 (Admin) concerned the then prohibition on private prayer in places of worship. Swift J refused an application for interim relief to allow Friday prayers at Barkerend Road Mosque. Lockdown did infringe the claimant's Article 9 rights but this interference was only with one aspect of religious observance and the interference had a finite duration. The legitimate difference of opinion between the claimant and the British Board of Scholars and Imams was relevant to the question of justification. There was no real prospect that the claimant would succeed at obtaining a permanent injunction at trial because the pandemic presented ‘truly exceptional circumstances’ that meant that the interference would be justified on grounds of public health. Swift J was satisfied that there was a sufficiently arguable case to grant permission to apply for judicial review but he did not order that the claim be expedited. In Dolan, Monks and AB v Secretary of State for Health [2020] EWHC 1786 (Admin), an application of a judicial review of the lockdown regulations and schools closure was refused. However, in relation to Article 9, Lewis J adjourned consideration of this discrete issue because regulations had just been made that allowed communal worship which may have made the argument academic. English law provides the right to manifest religion or belief under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of religion or belief in relation to employment and the provision of goods and services under the Equality Act 2010. This raises the point: during the lifting of lockdown, when authorities require people to go back to their workplace or send their children to school, could individuals who refuse say they were legally entitled to decline on the basis that such a requirement breached their belief in protecting the NHS?

中文翻译：

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国民保健服务是宗教吗？

在 COVID-19 封锁期间，英国政府最初的口号是“待在家里”。保护 NHS。拯救生命”、每周例行的公众对国家卫生服务 (NHS) 的鼓掌以及媒体报道的整体基调，导致几位评论员提出了 NHS 是否已成为一种宗教的问题。这个问题具有法律意义。封锁是否违反第 9 条的问题已经成为诉讼的主题。R（根据侯赛因的申请）诉卫生部长[2020] EWHC 1392（管理员）涉及当时禁止在礼拜场所进行私人祈祷。斯威夫特 J 拒绝了一项临时救济申请，以允许在巴克伦德路清真寺进行周五祈祷。封锁确实侵犯了索赔人的第 9 条权利，但这种干预只是宗教仪式的一个方面，而且这种干预的持续时间是有限的。索赔人与英国学者和伊玛目委员会之间的合法意见分歧与正当性问题有关。索赔人在审判中成功获得永久禁令的真实前景并不现实，因为大流行呈现出“真正特殊的情况”，这意味着基于公共卫生的理由进行干预是合理的。斯威夫特 J 对有充分论证的案件准许申请司法审查感到满意，但他没有下令加快诉讼程序。在Dolan, Monks and AB v 美国卫生部长[2020] EWHC 1786 (Admin)，对封锁规定和学校关闭的司法审查申请被拒绝。然而，关于第 9 条，Lewis J 暂停了对这个离散问题的考虑，因为刚刚制定了允许公共礼拜的法规，这可能使这一论点成为学术性的。英国法律根据 1998 年《人权法》规定了表明宗教或信仰的权利，并根据 2010 年《平等法》规定了在就业和提供商品和服务方面不因宗教或信仰而受到歧视的权利。要点：在解除封锁期间，当当局要求人们返回工作场所或送孩子上学时，