The Registrar General has a decision-making function in recording premises as “places of meeting for religious worship” [26, 66f]. Historically, such recording had originally been instituted to enable some non-conformist churches to avoid criminal penalties directed at non-Church of England worship [70]. As a result, recording under those statutes was simply an administrative matter [71]. However, the PWRA had significantly changed the language and purpose of the requirement [75]. Properly construed, s. 2 PWRA gives the Registrar General a discretion to record, essentially for three reasons. Firstly, this is the natural meaning of the language used [76]. Secondly, this is consistent with the Registrar General’s other functions under PWRA, which give her decision-making functions in relation to the renewal or cessation of use of recorded premises [77-79]. Thirdly, by the time that PWRA was enacted, the purpose of recording had altered: certification no longer only gave protection from criminal liability but also gave access to a number of privileges [79-82].

In considering whether the Appellants’ church qualifies for such recording, the first substantive question is whether Scientology is properly to be regarded as a religion. The interpretation of “religious worship” in Segerdal carried within it an implicit theistic definition of religion: what the Court of Appeal required was reverence for God [31]. There has never been a universal legal definition of religion in English law, given the variety of world religions, changes in society, and the different legal contexts in which the issues arise. It is necessary for PWRA to be interpreted in accordance with contemporary understanding of religion [32-34]. Two judgments from other common law countries, one from the US Court of Appeals and one from the High Court of Australia, shed useful light on the issue [35-49].

The High Court correctly decided that Scientology was a religion [50]. Religion should not be confined to faiths involving a supreme deity, since to do so would exclude Buddhism, Jainism, and others [51]. Moreover, it would involve the court in difficult theological territory: Scientologists do believe in a supreme deity, but one of abstract and impersonal nature [52]. It is not appropriate for the Registrar General or the courts to determine questions such as whether this belief constitutes a religion [53]. In a different context, the Charities Act 2006 states that “religion” includes religions not involving belief in a god [54-55].

Religion could summarily be described as a belief system going beyond sensory perception or scientific data, held by a group of adherents, which claims to explain mankind’s place in the universe and relationship with the infinite, and to teach its adherents how they are to live their lives in conformity with the spiritual understanding associated with the belief system [57]. On this approach to religion, Scientology was clearly a religion [60]. The question that followed was whether the Appellants’ church was a “place of meeting for religious worship”.

“Religious worship” includes “religious services” as well as the Segerdal concept of veneration or adoration of a deity [61-62]. This accords with the purpose of the statute: the authorisation to marry in conformity with one’s faith should not depend on fine theological or liturgical niceties as to how believers see and express their relationship with the infinite [63]. Since marriages on non-registered premises could not involve any form of “religious service”, if Scientologists were unable to marry in their church they could not have a legal marriage in accordance with their faith [64]. Since the Church of Scientology held religious services, it follows that its church is a “place of meeting for religious worship”, and the Registrar General is ordered to record it as such [65].