Ms Louisa Hodkin and her fiancé wished to marry in a religious service at the Church of Scientology's central London chapel. However, the Registrar General refused to record the chapel as a ‘place of worship’ under section 2 of the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855 – a necessary prerequisite for registering the building for the solemnisation of marriages under the Marriage Act 1949, which, in turn, would enable it to be used for marriage according to the ‘form and ceremony’ chosen by the marrying couple. The appeal came directly from the Administrative Court, where Ouseley J had held, somewhat reluctantly, that the Registrar had been correct to conclude that she was bound by the Court of Appeal's judgment in R v Registrar General, ex parte Segerdal [1970] 2 QB 697 that the activities of the Church of Scientology did not constitute ‘worship’ for the purposes of registration under the 1855 Act and that she could not, therefore, register the chapel.

The first substantive question at issue was whether or not Scientology was a religion. In Segerdal the Court had taken an implicitly theistic view of religion and religious worship and the 1855 Act had to be interpreted in accordance with contemporary understanding. There had never been a universal definition of ‘religion’ in English law; however, ‘religion’ should not be confined to faiths involving a supreme deity, since to do so would exclude faiths such as Buddhism and Jainism. Lord Toulson suggested that a working description might be something like this: a spiritual or non-secular belief system, held by a group of adherents, which claims to explain humanity's place in the universe and relationship with the infinite, and to teach its adherents how they are to live their lives in conformity with the spiritual understanding associated with the belief system.

Secondly, if Scientology were a religion but its chapel could not be registered under the 1855 Act because its services did not meet the test in Segerdal, Scientologists would be prevented from marrying anywhere in a form which involved the use of their marriage service, since a religious service in their own chapel would not constitute a legal marriage, while a civil marriage on other approved premises could not include any form of religious service because of the prohibition in section 46B(4) of the Marriage Act 1949. That situation was illogical, discriminatory and unjust. The Appeal was allowed unanimously. [Frank Cranmer]