On 16 July 2026, the European Court of Human Rights held in G.K. and A.S. v. Switzerland that dietary rules dictated by “genuine and consistently held vegan beliefs” may constitute a practice protected by Article 9 of the Convention. It was the first time the Court itself had expressly brought vegan dietary observance within the protection of freedom of thought and conscience.
The two applicants were wholly dependent on the State for their food: one in pre-trial detention, the other during involuntary psychiatric hospitalisation. Both repeatedly requested meals compatible with their ethical veganism. Although the authorities made some efforts to accommodate them, the Court expressly declined to determine whether the food ultimately provided was itself compatible with their convictions.
That may sound, at first sight, like recognition of a Convention right to vegan food. It is not.
Article 9 has long protected qualifying philosophical convictions as well as religion, provided they attain the required level of “cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance”. Veganism was not entirely new to Strasbourg either: the former Commission had already accepted in W. v. United Kingdom that vegan convictions could engage Article 9. What G.K. and A.S. adds is the express recognition that adherence to a vegan diet may itself amount to a protected manifestation of such convictions.
The more significant part of the judgment appears in paragraph 126. Where persons deprived of liberty invoke genuine and consistently held convictions, the authorities are under a positive obligation to address their requests in substance and within a clear domestic legal framework. This does not require every request to be granted. Organisational, financial, nutritional and practical constraints remain relevant. But the authorities must actually consider the competing interests and provide an answer capable of review.
That is where Switzerland failed. The applicants received letters rather than appealable administrative decisions. When they attempted to challenge those letters, the domestic courts refused to examine the merits because no formal “decision” existed. The result was almost Kafkaesque: the administration did not issue the decision necessary for judicial review, while the courts would not hear the complaint without one. Strasbourg considered that approach excessively formalistic and found violations of both Articles 9 and 13.
The importance of G.K. and A.S. therefore lies less in veganism than in the procedural protection of conscience. The Court did not prescribe a menu, nor did it create an unconditional duty of accommodation. It required something more basic: when a serious claim engages Article 9, the State must provide a process capable of addressing it substantively and producing a reasoned, reviewable answer.
The applicants were awarded 12.000 and 4.000 Euros respectively, in non-pecuniary damages. But the broader proposition is simpler.
The violation was not the menu. It was the silence.