The Court of Arches: Jurisdiction to Jurisprudence – ‘Entirely Settled’?

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 322-341
Author(s):  
Norman Doe
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Court System ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
The Church ◽  
As If

The Arches Court, the court of appeal of the Province of Canterbury in the Church of England, has existed for more than 700 years. Its evolution – driven by principle, politics and pragmatism – is a fascinating reflection of a key tribunal in the court system of the English Church, and the site of major historical and often contentious developments within the Church. Its appellate status has not changed; it still has jurisdiction over faculties and clergy discipline; its judge is still appointed by the archbishop; and its jurisprudence has contributed much to the development of English ecclesiastical law. However, over the centuries its jurisdiction has contracted; the courts to which appeals against its decisions lie have changed; its historical lawyers of civilian advocates and proctors have been replaced by common law barristers and solicitors; the title for its judge, Dean of Arches, has survived by accident; its procedure has been simplified; and its decisions have throughout its history been respected but today have the authority of binding precedents. The article takes the story up to 2018, when the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure provided that a decision of the Arches and of the provincial Chancery Court of York is today to be followed as if it were a decision of the other court.

Sovereignty and Common Law Judicial Office in Taylor's Case (1675)

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kearns
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
Chief Justice ◽  
Spiritual Nature ◽  
The Common ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Church ◽  
Law Making

This essay argues that the 1675 conviction of John Taylor by the Court of King's Bench for slandering God reveals Chief Justice Matthew Hale implementing a model of conjoint law-making between courts, Parliament, and crown that gave pre-eminent power to the common lawyers, and none to the Church of England. In doing so, it counters the prevailing literature on Restoration English law, which has treated the law as hierarchical, with the common lawyers subordinate to the sovereign. Rather than following statute or ecclesiastical law, which emphasised the spiritual nature of crimes like Taylor's, Hale located Taylor's offence in the exclusively temporal common law jurisdiction of defamation, which existed largely outside of monarchical purview. Hale's judgment reflected his rhetoric of judicial office outside the courtroom, where he argued the judiciary worked alongside King and Parliament in making law, but were not subservient to these institutions, for common lawyers relied on sources of law beyond sovereign-made statute. The language of sovereignty as hierarchical was thus a factional attack on an independent common law, an attempt to subordinate the common lawyers to the crown that was resisted by the lawyers like Hale in his rhetoric and exercise of office, and should not ground accounts of the Restoration regime.

The Canon Law of the Church of England: Its Implications for Unity

1988 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-23
Author(s):  
Quentin Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Canon Law ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
Legal Foundations ◽  
The Church

Among lawyers who profess to know their way about the labyrinth of the Church of England's legal foundations there is a debate whether there are two subjects or one – are ecclesiastical law and canon law the same? As some purists contend that canon law is more restricted in its scope I shall take, for convenience and perhaps accuracy, the description ecclesiastical law, which certainly comprehends, or should comprehend, canon law. The ecclesiastical law of the Church of England is derived from six sources (1) papal and domestic canon law, (2) ecclesiastical common law, (3) the relevant parts of the Corpus Juris Civilis, (4) parliamentary statutes, (5) Measures of the Church Assembly and the General Synod, (6) the Canons.

The Ecclesiastical Common Law: A Quarter-century Retrospective

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-42
Author(s):  
Charles George
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
The Church

This article reviews developments in ecclesiastical case law (interpreted widely) over the 25 years since the Ecclesiastical Law Journal was founded, focusing on four areas, in each of which, in the author's view, there have been significant developments: freedom of religion; the constitution of the Church of England; the protection of listed buildings; liturgy, ritual and doctrine. It notes the role of the Journal in reporting consistory court decisions and thus ensuring greater consistency of decision-making. It concludes by mentioning some of the leading cases in various other areas of ecclesiastical law.

Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett, of Chelsea, 18 November 1897 - 13 July 1974

1975 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 1-115 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Large Family ◽  
The Other ◽  
Future Career ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Future ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Indian Mutiny ◽  
The Church ◽  
Deep Interest

Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett was born in Kensington, London, on 18 November 1897. His father, Arthur Stuart Blackett, was a stockbroker, although apparently not by inclination since his great interests were in literature and nature. Patrick was the only boy but had an elder and younger sister; one trained and practised as an architect in the 1920s, until she married, and the other became an industrial psychologist and then a psychoanalyst. For the previous two generations the family had been associated with the Church of England. Patrick’s grandfather had been Vicar of the church in Woburn Square (now demolished), and was the Vicar of St Andrew’s, Croydon, at the time of his death. He had twice married and Arthur Stuart was one of a large family, two of whom went into the Church, whilst another became a missionary in India. Patrick’s great-grandfather came from Hamsterley in Co. Durham of a farming family. He moved to London and his children were baptised in St Saviour’s Church, Southwark (now Southwark Cathedral). The future career and interests of Patrick seem to have more association with his maternal descent. His mother, Caroline Frances Maynard, was the daughter of Major Charles Maynard, R.A., who served in India at the time of the Indian Mutiny. William Maynard, a brother of Charles, was also associated with India as a tea planter. The source of Patrick’s deep interest in Indian affairs has this association; so does his early naval career and his continued absorption in military affairs—in addition to the army career of his grandfather there was an earlier tradition of naval service in the Maynard family.

13. Voluntary manslaughter

2021 ◽  
pp. 540-588
Author(s):  
David Ormerod ◽  
Karl Laird
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Self Control ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bodily Harm ◽  
Loss Of Self ◽  
Grievous Bodily Harm ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
Partial Defences ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

Manslaughter is defined by common law as any unlawful homicide that is not murder. The offence is limited by murder at one extreme and accidental killing at the other. Manslaughter can be either ‘voluntary’ or ‘involuntary’. This chapter deals with voluntary manslaughter: this occurs when someone had the intention to kill or do grievous bodily harm, but relies on a partial defence to murder. The two partial defences considered in this chapter are loss of self- control and diminished responsibility (suicide pact is dealt with in Ch 15). This chapter scrutinizes the defences available to the accused and in particular the developing case law under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 on loss of control and diminished responsibility, including the Supreme Court’s decision in Golds and the series of Court of Appeal cases since that decision.

Discrimination and the Church of England: To What Extent does the Equality Act 2010 Adequately Protect Church of England Clergy?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Grout*
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Eligibility Criteria ◽  
Sensitive Question ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

Abstract The extent to which members of the clergy are considered ‘employees’ for the purposes of secular employment and equality legislation has been the subject of much discussion, but essentially remains a fact sensitive question. The Equality Act 2010 (‘the 2010 Act’) seeks to prevent discrimination on the basis of nine ‘protected characteristics’. While recognizing that the application of the 2010 Act to the variety of clergy offices is ‘not straightforward’, the Church of England (‘the Church’) has opined that an equitable approach to clergy appointments is to proceed as if they were subject to the provisions of the 2010 Act. What follows is in`tended to be a thorough review of the eligibility criteria for clergy appointment in the Church to assess their compatibility with the requirements of the 2010 Act. In addition, particular consideration will be given to Schedule 9(2) to the 2010 Act which makes specific provision relating to religious requirements concerning the protected characteristics of sex, sexual orientation, and marriage and civil partnership. In short, where the employment is for the purposes of an organized religion, such as the Church, requirements which relate to these protected characteristics will not constitute discrimination where they engage the ‘compliance or non-conflict principle’. What these principles mean and how they might operate in practice is discussed below, taking into account the likely canonical and theological justifications for discriminating against certain individuals. Whether the law strikes the right balance between, on the one hand protecting clergy and, on the other, providing the Church with the autonomy to act in accordance with its established doctrine, will be explored in the final analysis.

Episcopal Tombs in Early Modern England

2004 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER SHERLOCK
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

The Reformation simultaneously transformed the identity and role of bishops in the Church of England, and the function of monuments to the dead. This article considers the extent to which tombs of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century bishops represented a set of episcopal ideals distinct from those conveyed by the monuments of earlier bishops on the one hand and contemporary laity and clergy on the other. It argues that in death bishops were increasingly undifferentiated from other groups such as the gentry in the dress, posture, location and inscriptions of their monuments. As a result of the inherent tension between tradition and reform which surrounded both bishops and tombs, episcopal monuments were unsuccessful as a means of enhancing the status or preserving the memory and teachings of their subjects in the wake of the Reformation.

The Church of England and the Law of Divorce since 1837: Marriage Discipline, Ecclesiastical Law and the Establishment

1994 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-641
Author(s):  
Bruce S. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Canon Law ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Essential Point ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
Practical Reality ◽  
State Changes ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Ever since Henry VIII, the law of marriage has occupied a special place in the relationship between the Church of England and the state. Changes made to the law since 1857 have raised far-reaching and difficult questions about the nature of this relationship, involving the status of canon law. Marriage in church has remained, perhaps even more than the other rites of passage, an essential point at which the Church of England still touches the lives of great numbers of the otherwise unchurched, and these questions have thus impinged on the practical reality of the Church's work.

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