A Comparison: The Accommodation of Dietary Requirements of Religious Minorities in Prisons in Germany and the U.S.
Constitutionalism and Politics Working Group, has the pleasure to invite you to a talk by:
Pauline M. S. Weller, PhD researcher, Law Department, EUI, who will present a work-in-progress paper:
A Comparison: The Accommodation of Dietary Requirements of Religious Minorities in Prisons in Germany and the U.S.
Many religions have dietary requirements that can make it difficult to participate in a standard prison meal for religious inmates in German and U.S. prisons. According to Jewish dietary laws (kashrut) many Jews eat kosher foods, many Muslims follow a halal diet and many Buddhist wish to follow vegetarianism. To follow religious guidelines, is an essential element of the religious exercise of inmates and has created a number of difficulties for courts and the legislator, in both Germany and the U.S. The chapter discusses the different ways of how, if at all, religious dietary requirements get legally accommodated in the prison domain of each state, and critically compares them. Goal of the comparison is to identify and to explain the obstacles that religious minorities face when trying to follow religious dietary requirements during their time in detention. This includes to find out and to clarify what the respective laws and procedures are, but also, to look behind the surface of these written words and to understand the principles that stand behind them and behind the legal decisions that are made. Concretely, it is looked at the broader aims that are pursued by state authorities in the prison institution and at the historically grown status of inmates. Moreover, the constitutional notions of religious equality and fairness are taken into account and discussed in the particular context of the dietary options of religious inmates.
The paper will be discussed by Darshan Datar
On Tuesday, June 13th from 15:00 to 17:00 in Seminar Room 4, Badia
To receive the paper that will be presented please write to [email protected]
All members of the EUI are welcome! We hope to see you there!
The ConstPol Team