Liberty, represented 14-year-old Sarika Singh and successfully argued that Aberdare Girls’ School in South Wales breached race relations and equality laws by excluding her since November 2007 for wearing the kara (a plain single bangle widely accepted as a central tenet of the Sikh race and religion).

Anna Fairclough, Liberty’s Legal Officer representing the Singhs, said:

“This common sense judgment makes clear you must have a very good reason before interfering with someone’s religious freedom. Our great British traditions of religious tolerance and race equality have been rightly upheld today.”

Noting that the school has a role to play in developing principles of religious and racial tolerance in its pupils, Mr Justice Silber said in his judgment:

“…Without those principles being adopted in a school, it is difficult to see how a cohesive and tolerant multi-cultural society can be built in this country…I hope that the school will take all possible steps to ensure first that [she] can become quickly assimilated again within the school and second that there will be no bullying of her for racial or religious reasons.”

Singh, of mixed Welsh/Punjabi origin, has been raised in the Sikh faith and was the only Sikh at the Aberdare Girls’ School. The school’s uniform policy prohibits the wearing of any jewellery other than a wrist watch and plain ear studs. When the school noticed that Singh was wearing the kara, she was isolated for two months, including during meals and physical education classes despite her offer to remove or cover the Kara during exercise, before being excluded entirely in November 2007.