Judgment No. CCZ 7/16 20 Const. Application No. CCZ 17/15 cornerstone of human rights. It affects the believer’s view of society and founds the distinction between right and wrong. It expresses itself in the affirmation and continuity of powerful traditions that frequently have an ancient character transcending historical epochs and national boundaries.” The importance of religious diversity in the educational sphere was highlighted by Langa CJ in MEC for Education: Kwazulu-Natal & Others v Pillay 2008 (1) SA 474 (CC) at para. 107 as follows: “As a general rule, the more learners feel free to express their religions and cultures in school, the closer we will come to the society envisaged in the Constitution. The display of religion and culture in public is not a ‘parade of horribles’ but a pageant of diversity which will enrich our schools and in turn our country.” Counsel for the applicants correctly notes that an essential component of the right to freedom of religion is the absence of coercion or restraint and that the freedom may be unjustly impaired by measures that compel anyone to act or refrain from acting in a manner contrary to one’s religious beliefs. This absence of compulsion is emphasised even in the Wittmann case (supra) at 449D-G: “Of course the right of freedom of religion (in the case of religious minorities) and the right to freedom of thought, belief and opinion (in the case of atheists and agnostics) entails that attendance may not be enforced. It must be voluntary. The right of non-attendance is expressly recognised in sections 14(2) of the interim Constitution and 15(2) of the Constitution. Attendance must be ‘free and voluntary’. There may be no coercion, neither by rules nor by action on the part of the authorities.” Similarly, in the Pillay case (supra) at paras. 63-64, the underlying values of human dignity, equality and freedom are underscored in the pursuit of religious practices: