E/CN.4/1999/58/Add.1 page 5 in an organized Church, sect or denomination a prerequisite for claiming a religious exemption to an employment insurance statute requirement that claimants be able to work on all days of the week (Frazee v. Illinois Department of Employment Security, 489 US 829 (1989)). An individual's right to believe in non-traditional religions or to be an atheist or agnostic is protected. It should be added that the Internal Revenue Code does not define the term “religious”. Internal Revenue Service determination concerning the tax-exempt status of religious organizations does not involve judgement of the merits of a claimed religious belief, but rather looks at whether the asserted religious beliefs of the organization are truly and sincerely held, and whether the practices and rituals associated with the organization's religious belief or creed are legal or contrary to clearly defined public policy. A. Constitutional and jurisprudential guarantees 9. These guarantees concern, on the one hand, the free exercise of religion and, on the other, the “non-establishment” of religion. 1. Free exercise of religion 10. There follows a brief account of the way the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on the free exercise of religion and the legal restrictions on it has evolved, because of the light it can shed on the subject. 11. The first cases of jurisprudence concerned the Mormons and the practice of polygamy. In Reynolds v. United States, 98 US 145 (1879), the Supreme Court rejected Mr. Reynolds' claim that polygamy was an exercise of his religion and said that the free exercise clause protected his right to believe, but not his right to act on those beliefs. Other cases include Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 US 15 (1885) (concerning a federal statute barring polygamists from voting or serving on juries); Davis v. Beason, 133 US 333 (1890) (territorial legislation requiring prospective voters to swear that they are not polygamists nor a member of any organization encouraging or practising polygamy); The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States, 136 US 1 (1890) (revocation of the charter of the Mormon Church and confiscation of Church property); Cleveland v. United States, 329 US 14 (1946) (transporting a polygamous wife across state lines violates the Mann Act, which prohibits the transportation of women across state lines for “immoral purposes”). In Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 US 205 (1972) (exempting Amish children from obligatory school attendance) and Sherbert v. Verner, 374 US 398 (1963) (unemployment compensation may not be denied to a person who refused to make her/himself available for work on Saturday because it was her/his Sabbath), it is suggested that a law which substantially burdens the exercise of religion will be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny and will be upheld only if it is neutral, furthers a compelling State interest, and is the least burdensome means of furthering that interest. 12. In other cases, the Court has upheld certain neutral laws of general applicability without applying strict scrutiny: Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 US 11 (1905) (validity of compulsory vaccination laws despite religious prescriptions against medical care); Braunfield v. Brown, 366 US 599 (1961) (no exemption from Sunday closing laws for Orthodox Jewish merchants who