Lords rule on schoolgirl's right to wear Muslim gown

London, England - The House of Lords is being asked to rule on whether a schoolgirl who was refused permission to wear a head-to-toe dress in class had her human rights violated.

In March last year, the Court of Appeal ruled that Shabina Begum was unlawfully excluded from Denbigh High School in Luton, Beds, when she was sent home to change out of her traditional jilbab into acceptable school uniform.

The Court ruled that she had been denied her right to manifest her religion, but her school appealed the decision.

Miss Begum, 17 - represented by Cherie Booth QC - had worn the shalwar kameez (trousers and tunic) from the time she entered the school at the age of 12 until September 2002, when she informed the school that she would wear it no longer because it was against the tenets of her religion. She adopted the jilbab instead.

The headmistress of the school, Yasmin Bevan, who wanted to promote unity through a school uniform and said girls could wear a skirt, trousers or a shalwar kameez and were permitted to wear headscarves which complied with school uniform requirements.

But Miss Begum believed that, for a Muslim woman who has started to menstruate, the kameez did not comply with the strict requirements of her religion.

The judge ruled that "her freedom to manifest her religion or belief in public was being limited, and as a matter of Convention (the European Convention on Human Rights) law it would be for the school, as an emanation of the state, to justify the limitation on her freedom created by the school's uniform code and by the way in which it was enforced".

The case will now be heard by the Law Lords, who will also decide whether Abdul Hakim Ali had his right to education violated after he was excluded from Lord Grey School in Bletchley, Bucks, on suspicion of being involved in a classroom fire.