Appeals Court Ruling
On Jan. 16, 2007 a three-judge panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled unanimously to reverse the trial court decision that had dismissed the case. The appeals court found that the issue was not moot. The Court's ruling also mentioned it received "affidavits from eight Jewish members of ACLU-NC who were residents of Guilford County and eligible for jury duty, stating they would prefer to swear on the Hebrew Bible rather than the Christian Bible if selected as jurors or asked to testify in court."
The Court reviewed the history of the case noting that "When Ms. Mateen appeared as a witness, she requested that her oath to tell the truth be sworn on the holy text of her religious faith, the Quran. When her request was denied and because she would not swear on the Christian Bible, her options were to affirm without the use of a religious text or be denied the opportunity to testify. …Ms. Mateen chose to affirm to tell the truth, and she now seeks a declaratory judgment determining whether, under N.C.G.S. § 11-2, she has the right to swear on her holy text, the Quran."
The Court held that the case should go forward, because without a court decision on the matter a conflict was unavoidable, saying "Under these circumstances, Ms. Mateen clearly demonstrated her intent to avail herself of her asserted right to swear on her religious text and her intent to litigate that right. The State has clearly demonstrated, by its refusal to permit witnesses to swear on any text other than the Christian Bible, its intent to continue the course of action; thus, its actions are not speculative . … ACLU-NC argues that it is not a matter of ‘if’ one of its members who would prefer to swear on a different religious text will be called to serve as a juror or witness, but rather it is a matter of ‘when.’ We agree."
The court stressed that it was only calling for the case to go forward, and was not itself judging the cases merits, saying "The sole issue presented by this appeal is whether either plaintiff has presented a justiciable controversy in their complaint. We conclude the complaint is sufficient to entitle both plaintiffs to litigate their claims under the Declaratory Judgment Act, though we are careful to express no opinion on the merits of those claims."
Seth Cohen, General Counsel for the N.C. ACLU stated “We are very happy with the Court of Appeals’ decision today. This is an important issue that affects thousands of people of faith across North Carolina who are not of the Christian faith, and we look forward to a hearing on the Constitutional questions raised by this case.”
Mateen repeated her position in an interview after the Appeals Court allowed the case to go forward, saying she always "felt like, in this day and time, that they would at least have the three major religious texts in the courtroom. If it was a Quran in the courtroom and a Christian was in there, would they want to testify on a holy Quran?"
Read more about this topic: ACLU Of N.C. & Syidah Matteen V. State Of North Carolina
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