page_title: Article 15 of the Constitution of Singapore
section_title: Text of Article 15
hierarchical_section_title: Article 15 of the Constitution of Singapore / Text of Article 15
caption_attribution_description: English: Article 15 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (1999 Reprint).
context_page_description: Article 15 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore guarantees freedom of religion in Singapore. Specifically, Article 15 states: "Every person has the right to profess and practise his religion and to propagate it."
  The terms profess, practise and propagate are not defined in the Constitution, but cases from Singapore and other jurisdictions may shed light on their meaning. The word profess in relation to a religion was defined in a 1964 Singapore case not involving the Constitution as meaning "to affirm, or declare one's faith in or allegiance to". A 2001 Malaysian decision suggested that the profession of religion does not encompass the renunciation of a religion or the profession of an irreligious viewpoint. As regards the word propagate, in 1977 the Supreme Court of India held that it confers on an individual the right to transmit or spread his or her religion by an exposition of its tenets, but not the right to convert another person who holds a pre-existing religious belief to one's own religion. These issues have not yet come before the Singapore courts for determination.
context_section_description: Article 15 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore is entitled "Freedom of religion" and reads as follows:
  15.— (1) Every person has the right to profess and practise his religion and to propagate it.
  (2) No person shall be compelled to pay any tax the proceeds of which are specially allocated in whole or in part for the purposes of a religion other than his own.
  (3) Every religious group has the right —
  (a) to manage its own religious affairs;
  (b) to establish and maintain institutions for religious or charitable purposes; and
  (c) to acquire and own property and hold and administer it in accordance with law.
  
  (4) This Article does not authorise any act contrary to any general law relating to public order, public health or morality.
  In Nappalli Peter Williams v. Institute of Technical Education (1999), the Court of Appeal affirmed that the Constitution generally adopts what is known as accommodative secularism by "removing restrictions to one's choice of religious belief".
  Article 15(1) is in pari materia with Article 11(1) of the Constitution of Malaysia, from which it was adopted following Singapore's independence from Malaysia in 1965. The latter states: "Every person has the right to profess and practice his religion and, subject to clause (4), to propagate it." Article 15(1) also contains similarities to Article 25(1) of the Constitution of India: "Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right
  freely to profess, practise and propagate religion."
caption: Article 15 in a copy of the 1999 Reprint of the Constitution of Singapore
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