Religious education and collective worship in Northern Ireland’s State schools does not comply with ‘fundamental human rights standards’, the UK Supreme Court has ruled.

The court handed down its unanimous judgment on Tuesday in an appeal brought by a young girl, anonymised as JR87, and her father, G.

It found that the syllabus set by the Department of Education is not being delivered in a way that is “objective, critical and pluralistic”, which it said “amounts to pursuing the aim of indoctrination”.

The fact that the young girl in the case could be withdrawn from religious education was not sufficient, the court said, to avoid a finding that the current practice is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which the UK is still a party to.

The ruling does not appear to impact the teaching of religion in Catholic schools.