E/CN.4/1998/6/Add.1 page 3 A. The Australian Constitution 8. It should be noted that the Australian Constitution does not contain a general bill of rights and freedoms. However, religious freedom is guaranteed by article 116 of the Constitution in the following terms: “The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth”. 9. At the Federal level, these provisions thus safeguard the principle of neutrality vis-à-vis religion and religious freedom. The legal protection they afford is nevertheless limited because it applies only to the legislative powers of the Commonwealth and not to its other powers and activities, particularly its executive and judicial powers. Moreover, this Constitutional protection applies to the Commonwealth and not to the States and Territories, which, by law, have freedom of action with regard to religious freedom (including restrictions). 10. In its final report in 1980, the Australian Constitutional Commission to Commemorate the Bicentenary of European Colonization recommended that article 116 of the Constitution should be amended so that Federal guarantees of religious freedom would be enforced in all States and Territories of the Commonwealth. During the 1988 referendum, the question of the extension of Federal guarantees of religious freedom to all States and Territories of the Commonwealth was rejected by 69 per cent of the voters. 11. This limited protection of religious freedom must, however, be offset by the progress made in the legal protection of religious freedom as a result of decisions of the High Court of Australia relating to the definition of the term “religion” and interpretations of constitutional provisions relating to “the establishment of a religion”. 12. With regard to the definition of the term “religion”, in the Church of the New Faith v. Commission for Payroll Tax case in 1983, the High Court had to determine whether the Church of Scientology fit the description of a “religious, public and voluntary institution” to be exempted from taxes on wages paid to staff under the income tax law. The High Court found in favour of the Church of Scientology and indicated that the status of a “religion” did not apply only to theistic denominations. Judge Mason and Judge Brennan specified that there were two criteria for determining the existence of a religion: belief in a supernatural being, thing or principle and submission to rules of conduct shaping such a belief. Judge Murphy proposed that any organization which purported to be religious and whose belief and practices were reminiscent of or reflected ancient forms of worship could claim to believe in one or more supernatural beings, a god or an abstract entity and would be regarded as a religion. 13. As to the provisions on the “establishment of a religion”, in the Attorney-General for the State of Victoria (the relations of Black) and Others v. the Commonwealth of Australia and Others case in 1981, the High Court dismissed a petition designed to establish that Federal subsidies for