Council of Ministers Plenary: Canceled ministerial decision to exempt students from Religious Studies

The Plenary Session of the Council of State, with its decision No. 1478/2022, annulled the Joint Ministerial Decision of 2021, in the part that provides for the exemption of students from the Religious Studies course, as the opinion was not preceded by the issuance of the KYA of the Personal Data Protection Authority on this matter.

In detail, the Plenary Session of the Council of State (chairman Dimitris Skalzounis and rapporteur Paraskevi Braimi) accepted the request of parents, with which they requested the cancellation of the 28.5.2021 KYA in the part that regulates the exemption of male and female students from the Religious Studies course.

With their application, the parents requested the annulment of the ministerial decision in question, on the one hand, as regards the conditions for exemption from the Religious Studies course, and on the other hand, as regards the alternative employment of students exempted from the Religious Studies course, instead of the teaching of an equivalent course of related content to the Religious Studies course is foreseen.

The Plenary Session of the CoE ruled that the regulation, according to which the principal-principal of the school unit in collaboration with the teachers’ association decide on a case-by-case basis the manner in which exempt students are compulsorily employed, is constitutionally acceptable, as a transitional measure, until the final settlement of the matter within a reasonable time. And the Council considers the end of the 2022-2023 school year as a reasonable time.

Finally, the State advisers judged that “before issuing the contested act, the opinion of the Personal Data Protection Authority was required, as an essential type, which, however, as it appears from the data in the file, does not exist”.

RES-EMP

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