Spain’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the refusal of a Catholic brotherhood to admit a woman amounted to illegal discrimination against her on the basis of her sex and her right to association.

In 2008, María Teresita Laborda Sanz requested to join a public association of the faithful founded in 1545 specifically for men.

In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that Laborda had not suffered any discrimination because “the purposes of [the brotherhood] being religious, it did not hold a dominant position in the economic, professional, or labour spheres, so no harm could be caused to the appellant, who could create a new religious association with the same purposes.”

However, rejecting this interpretation, the Constitutional Court has now said that while the association may be religious in nature, the prohibition of women “is not based on any reason of a religious or moral nature”.