E/CN.4/1991/56 page 10 Switzerland "Article 4 of the Federal Constitution guarantees the principle of equality in and before the law. Articles 49 (Freedom of conscience and belief) and 50 (Freedom of worship) of the Federal Constitution do not make a distinction between religions, religious sects and religious associations. Freedom of conscience and of belief lies in free personal decisions in religious matters. According to the Federal Tribunal, the highest Swiss Court, it includes the right to practise one's belief (Judgement by the Federal Court (ATF) 57 I 116). Freedom of worship is the right of every individual to perform the acts of the divine service. Article 49 concerns individuals alone, whereas article 50 mainly concerns groups. Freedom of conscience and belief and freedom of worship oblige the State to take a neutral stance on religious issues (ATF 113 I 307). Any religious association may organize itself under private law if it does not pursue a purpose that is unlawful or contrary to public morals. With the exception of the police measures necessary for the maintenance of public order and which, in the traditional formulation used by the Federal Court include security, public peace, health, morality and good faith (ATF 91 I 457) and peace among the various religious communities, the State may not exercise control over them. However, it may declare unlawful any communities which, having been formed as associations, have a purpose or use methods that are unlawful or dangerous for the State (cf. art. 56 of the Federal Constitution). In Switzerland, however, there is a difference in treatment that is beneficial to some religious communities. Under the constitutional rule on the division of jurisdiction as between the Confederation and the cantons, the cantons remain, within the limits assigned to them by federal law, sovereign in determining their relations with these religious communities. They may therefore prescribe total separation between the two entities or confer on one or more communities public law status, in which case they may aid them by conferring on them, for instance, the right to levy taxes. At the present time, only the cantons of Neuchatel and Geneva have effected the separation between Church and State. Elsewhere, the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformed Evangelical Church have acquired public law status. Some cantons have also conferred it on the Christian Catholic Church. Basel-Stadt has even extended it to the Jewish community. The practice of the cantons has been deemed consistent with the principle of equality as well as with the freedom of religion (cf. also art. 2 (2) of the 1981 United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief). Under the judicial practice of the Federal Tribunal, the principle of equality is violated when one treats differently that which is essentially similar or equally that which is essentially different (ATF 103 I 245). In considering one of the privileges of the official churches, namely the tax privilege, the Federal Tribunal concluded, on the ground that 95 per cent of the population belongs to the official churches, that there is an essential de facto difference between Churches with public law status and private religious communities. Consequently, the privileges granted to the former do not violate the principle of equality. With regard to freedom of religion, the Federal Tribunal considered that the existence of official churches restricts