R v Registrar General, ex p Segerdal

R v Registrar General ex parte Segerdal and another
Court	Court of Appeal of England and Wales
Decided	7 July 1970
Citation(s)	[1970] 2 QB 697, [1970] 3 All ER 886
Court membership
Judges sitting	Lord Denning MR, Winn LJ, Buckley LJ

R v Registrar General ex parte Segerdal and another was a court case heard by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, which was instrumental in determining whether the Church of Scientology was to be considered a bona fide religion in England and Wales, and by extension what defines a religion in English law. The case, heard in 1969–70, focused on the question of whether a chapel at the Scientologists' UK headquarters should be registered as a meeting place for religious worship under an 1855 law. The Church's initial application was refused and it appealed the case to the courts, arguing that Scientology was a genuine religion and that it used the chapel for religious purposes. In dismissing the appeal, the Court of Appeal found that Scientology's practices "did not reveal any form whatever of worship".^[1] Ten years later, the Segerdal ruling was drawn upon to define a religion for the purposes of English common law as requiring "faith in a god and worship of that god".^[2] The Segerdal ruling was later overturned by the Supreme Court in 2013 who redefined the term "religion" in a modern context and ruled that Scientology is to be recognised as a religion in the UK.^[3]