O conflito entre a liberdade religiosa e as medidas restritivas de realização de cultos durante a pandemia de COVID-19 no Brasil

Abstract

The present work seeks to analyze the legitimacy of the temporary limitation to the performance of services and other religious activities in person during the Covid-19 pandemic and due to the enactment of lockdown in several Brazilian locations. In order to do so, a doctrinal and legislative study is carried out on some aspects related to the theme, namely, fundamental rights and their limitations, religious freedom and its constitutional protection, state secularism, the right to health and the duty of the state to fight the pandemic. From a deductive reasoning and based on the position of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), it is concluded that religious freedom, in its aspect of freedom of worship or organization, can be restricted when it collides with a fundamental right of greater value, in this case, collective health and, consequently, life. Such restriction, however, does not reach the essential core of the law.