A Stockholm court overturns the state’s attempt to police doctrine, restoring equal access to public support for a minority faith.
by Massimo Introvigne
The Administrative Court in Stockholm has delivered a decision that will be remembered as a turning point in the long and troubled relationship between Sweden’s public institutions and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
After a long series of refusals and court cases, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were finally allowed to obtain state subsidies, which many other religious organizations in Sweden also receive, in 2019. In 2024, however, the law regulating these subsidies was amended—with the explicit goal of excluding the Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to government officials. The goal was achieved with the October 24, 2025, decision by the Swedish Authority for Support to Faith Communities (SST) to deny Jehovah’s Witnesses access to state subsidies under the new law. The Jehovah’s Witnesses appealed to the Administrative Court of Stockholm.
In its judgment of 7 May 2026, case no. 23674‑25, the Court overturned the October 2025 refusal. It held unequivocally that “the Jehovah’s Witnesses are entitled to a state grant under the Act (2024:487) on State Grants to Faith Communities.” It is a victory for one religious minority and for the principle—too often invoked and too rarely applied—that a democratic state must remain neutral toward religious doctrine and must not police the internal life of faith communities.
The Court’s reasoning is a direct rebuke to the SST, which had attempted to exclude Jehovah’s Witnesses by invoking the so‑called “democracy conditions.” The agency argued that the Witnesses do not meet these conditions, as they discriminate by denying membership to those who do not live according to their moral teachings, including those openly in same-sex relationships, and that they exert “improper pressure” through their practice of limiting social contact with former members (sometimes called “shunning”).
The Court reminded the authority of a basic constitutional truth: “Freedom of religion under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights entails that the State has a duty to remain neutral and impartial with respect to religious beliefs.” That duty, the Court continued, “means that the State is prevented from assessing the legitimacy of such beliefs and the ways in which they are expressed or manifested.”
This principle is decisive. Membership rules, moral standards, and internal discipline are part of what the Court calls the “internal life” of a religious community, protected under Article 9 and repeatedly affirmed by the European Court of Human Rights. The Administrative Court quoted the Strasbourg case law and Sweden’s own Supreme Administrative Court to underline that “no closer examination or valuation of the community’s religious doctrine should be made.” Such examination would be fundamentally incompatible with the neutrality required of the State.
The Court distinguished between “those parts of a faith community’s activities that are directed towards the public,” which authorities may examine in connection with the allocation of subsidies, and “phenomena occurring within a faith community’s internal activities,” which “are covered by the protection of freedom of religion.”
The Court observed that the Jehovah’s Witnesses “set conditions for membership that may appear discriminatory.” However, this may be “regarded as commonly occurring within several faith communities entitled to state grants.” A religious organization is not a commercial enterprise. It is founded on shared faith, moral values, and practices, which are considered prerequisites for membership and are freely embraced by believers. In this context, a certain level of “discrimination” is typical of religions and not unique to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The Court also criticized the SST for reconstructing the practices of the Jehovah’s Witnesses based on inadequate or questionable evidence, which led to faulty conclusions. It reminded the state that the European Court of Human Rights, in cases specifically concerning the Jehovah’s Witnesses, established the principle that “second-hand information and so-called expert opinions have not been sufficient to consider that authorities’ and courts’ burdensome decisions against religious communities were based on an adequate evidentiary basis.”
The Court then examined the two reasons provided by the state for denying subsidies—first, that Jehovah’s Witnesses discriminate against those who do not adhere to their moral standards, including same-sex couples, and second, that they ostracize disfellowshipped former members, including relatives.
Discussing the first issue, the Court rejected the idea that Jehovah’s Witnesses discriminate “in that part of the faith community’s activities that is directed to the public and to persons who do not wish to become members” (as opposite to the participation in “internal activities,” on which the state has no jurisdiction). The Court noted that the authority had produced no evidence that the Witnesses impose discriminatory conditions on those who attend meetings or participate in Bible study without seeking membership. On the contrary, the Court recorded that Jehovah’s Witnesses had stated that “choice of life partner does not affect a person’s possibility to participate in parts of the community’s activities,” and that the state had not disputed this. The decisive question, the Court held, is not what standards a religion sets for its own members, but whether it violates rights in its interactions with the public. Nothing in the record suggested that Jehovah’s Witnesses had done so.
On the second allegation, that the removal or so-called shunning of disfellowshipped ex-members constitutes “improper pressure,” the Court was equally clear. It placed the burden of proof squarely on the authority. To impose burdensome measures, the authority must make its allegations probable. It had not. The Court examined the materials relied upon by the agency—website excerpts and a submission by two individuals—and found them insufficient. The website’s content, it observed, is inconclusive. The submission “refers to second-hand sources” and “contains some legal argument and (partly outdated) information about legal proceedings in other countries. The submission therefore has more the character of argument than a witness statement. Overall, it must be considered to have very limited evidentiary value.” In fact, the submission included “outdated” references to the case in Norway (which the Jehovah’s Witnesses eventually won), and “second-hand” information taken from a book by a Swedish anti-cult journalist.
The Court acknowledged that Jehovah’s Witnesses limit association with excluded members, including relatives, but noted that the grim picture painted by the SST did not consider several circumstances. Disfellowshipped cohabiting relatives are not “shunned.” For them, “family activities continue as usual,” family bonds—including relations between spouses—continue, and disfellowshipped minors are taken care of. Disfellowshipped members “can be invited to congregation meetings,” and can be reinstated under certain conditions. The Court (with the dissenting opinion of one among four judges) “considers that the evidentiary basis relied on by the authority—set against what Jehovah’s Witnesses have submitted—cannot be considered to provide sufficient support for the conclusion that Jehovah’s Witnesses exert improper pressure through threats of harmful consequences” for disfellowshipped members or relatives who do not “shun” them.
The judgment thus exposes the fragility of the case that had been constructed against Jehovah’s Witnesses. Certain Swedish authorities have attempted to frame doctrinal disagreement as a threat to democracy, and internal religious discipline as a form of psychological violence. The new Act 2024:487 was drafted in a political climate where leading officials openly stated that the law needed to be changed “to correct” the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses had previously been found eligible for subsidies. The legislative intent was not concealed. Nor was the selective scrutiny: Jehovah’s Witnesses were asked doctrinal questions, while other groups with comparable teachings—including the Catholic Church—continued to receive support without interference.
Against this backdrop, the Administrative Court’s insistence on neutrality is a restoration of principle. The Court warned that the authority’s interpretation of the law “would risk consequences so far-reaching for the possibility of obtaining a state grant that a primary purpose of the Act [on subsidies]—strengthening faith communities’ ability to conduct active and long-term religious activity and helping to ensure that all people have the same basic opportunities to practise their religion in Sweden—could not be achieved.”
The Court’s decision also aligns Sweden with the recent ruling of the Norwegian Supreme Court, which similarly rejected attempts to treat Jehovah’s Witnesses’ internal religious discipline as grounds for state sanctions. Both courts reaffirmed the crucial importance of religious freedom in a democratic society, and that religious freedom includes the right of communities to define their own membership and moral standards.
In the end, the Stockholm judgment is a reminder that religious freedom is not the freedom to be popular. It is the freedom to be different. By declaring that Jehovah’s Witnesses are entitled to the state grants and by rejecting the authority’s attempt to stretch the democracy conditions beyond recognition, the Administrative Court has reaffirmed that principle at a moment when it was urgently needed.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
