The Case for a General Constitutional Right to be Granted Conscientious Exemption

Abstract

Conscientious exemption is called for when a person’s conscience conflicts with the demands or the requirements of the law. Most of the academic research about the practice of granting conscientious exemptions and its justification explores the question of when such exemptions should be granted. The purpose of this article is to explore the largely neglected, yet highly important and interrelated questions of how conscientious exemptions should be granted—and by whom.
The argument proposed is that there is no single model for granting conscientious exemptions that is preferable in all cases. Therefore, conscientious exemptions should be granted in different ways and by different authorities in different cases. These typical cases are discussed throughout the article. The argument that there is no single preferred model for granting conscientious exemptions leads to a more specific argument, namely that, alongside other ways of granting conscientious exemptions, there should always be a general constitutional right to be granted such an exemption.