British law also requires the monarch to make a declaration before Parliament rejecting Catholicism upon his or her accession to the throne, the Guardian reports.
The Coronation Oath Act requires the British monarch to "maintaine the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospel and the Protestant reformed religion established by law [...] and [...] preserve unto the bishops and clergy of this realm and to the churches committed to their charge all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain unto them or any of them."
Eight years ago the Guardian had launched a campaign for a change in the law, challenging the Act of Settlement on the legal grounds that it conflicts with the Human Rights Act.
Geoffrey Robinson, a constitutional lawyer who represented the Guardian in its legal challenge, argued that the centuries-old act violates the Human Rights Act’s anti-discrimination provisions and its protections of “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” and the right to “peaceful enjoyment of possessions,” which he construes to mean possession of a place in the royal succession.
“The Act of Settlement determined that the crown shall descend only on Protestant heads and that anyone 'who holds communion with the church of Rome or marries a Papist' - not to mention a Muslim, Hindu, Jew or Rastafarian - is excluded by force of law,” said Robinson.
“This arcane and archaic legislation enshrined religious intolerance in the bedrock of the British constitution,” he continued. “In order to hold the office of head of state you must be white Anglo-German Protestant - a descendant of Princess Sophia of Hanover - down the male line on the feudal principle of primogeniture. This is in blatant contravention of the Sex Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Act."