Striking a Balance Between Freedom of Religion and State's Regulatory Power in Modern Democratic Systems: State Regulation of Religious Preaching in Northern Nigeria under Scrutiny

Abstract

Many Constitutions in modern democracies guarantee citizens individual rights to manifest their religion and even engage in religious proselytism. The same instruments however allow states to limit these rights through the application of reasonably justifiable laws in democratic societies. The determination of the legal implications and qualifications of such laws in the event of conflicts between the states' regulatory powers and freedoms of religion in democratic societies has increasingly remained a constitutional puzzle. This has given rise to different formulations of standards of judicial review or proportionality tests by courts in their attempts to strike balance between the two competing rights in various legal orders. This work uses argumentative approach to propose a new theoretical framework based on countries' state-religion relations and historical antecedents for the formulation of standard of judicial review for the resolution of conflicts between the two rival rights in modern democracy