And in a very thin week…
Scotland, religious harassment and football again
Last year, we noted the case of Mr P McCue v Civil Nuclear Police Authority [2022] UKET 2415411/2021, in which an Employment Tribunal found that Sergeant Paul McCue had been subjected to religious harassment while working in the Civil Nuclear Constabulary unit at Hunterston B nuclear power station. Someone had left a piece of paper in his pigeonhole that read “UDA no surrender” and someone had scribbled “FTP” with a marker pen on his Celtic FC mug.
Scottish Legal News reports that at the subsequent remedy hearing, Sergeant McCue was awarded damages of £43,981.
Coronation claims
On Tuesday, we posted a piece about what we thought was an entirely innocuous announcement by the Government that it had created a Coronation Claims Office to consider claims to perform a historic or ceremonial role at the forthcoming Coronation, rather than resurrecting the (judicial) Court of Claims which adjudicated claims in relation to the Coronation of the late Queen. The decision seems to have generated a certain amount of criticism on Twitter, however: principally, bemoaning the fact that a court should be replaced by an executive agency.
Charity Commission for Northern Ireland
The Department for Communities has announced the interim appointment of Gerard McCurdy as Chief Commissioner and Chair of the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland as of 21 December 2022. Mr McCurdy is the former NI Director of the Food Standards Agency which he was instrumental in setting up. He has been appointed to the role until a permanent appointee is in place.
CDM Decisions and Safeguarding
Further to the new policy on reporting penalties by consent in CDM tribunals, which came into force on 24 October 2022, details of some of these have been posted on the Church of England web pages, although others are presently only available on diocesan websites – see David Lamming’s comments here and here. Both will be included in our monthly and annual review of ecclesiastical law cases, except where there is duplication between the diocesan and the national reports.
L&RUK in 2022
This week we summarised our picks for the most significant UK religion cases over the past year, and also some of those from the consistory courts. In terms of our readers, the “top ten” posts on the basis of the number of page views comprised a mixture of current (2022) posts and those from as far back as 2015:
| 1 | Church of England Parochial Fees 2022 | 23 November 2021 |
| 2 | Principles of Canon Law and the Mind of the Anglican Communion | 26 July 2022 |
| 3 | Church of England Parochial Fees 2021 | 25 November 2021 |
| 4 | Church bells and the law | 13 February 2018 |
| 5 | Churchyard Regulations – the practicalities of enforcement | 16 June 2016 |
| 6 | Churches as charities: some basics | 4 September 2015 |
| 7 | Churches, Minsters and Cathedrals | 17 November 2016 |
| 8 | May a parish or town council grant-aid a place of worship? – yet further thoughts | 2 June 2020 |
| 9 | Should the Church of England be disestablished? | 8 June 2022 |
| 10 | Rustat memorial: judgment | 23 March 2022 |
Unsurprisingly, the judgment on the Rustat memorial made it onto all three compilations, and the summary of the Parochial Fees continues to attract over 11,000 page views each year.
Quick links
- Konstantina Alexopoulou, Oxford Journal of Law & Religion: The Margin of Appreciation in Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Religion under Article 9 of ECHR.
- Alexander Alich, The Conversation: Shamanism: what you need to know about the fastest-growing ‘religion’ in England and Wales.
- Rosie Dawson, Religion Media Centre: Decency above all: how Jewish faith has shaped the life of new parliamentary commissioner: an interview with the new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Daniel Greenberg, lawyer, academic, former Parliamentary Counsel and observant Jew.
- Roland Pierik, Oxford Journal of Law & Religion: Is Symbolic Religious Establishment Permitted Within the European Convention? A Legal, Political, and Pragmatic Perspective: the short answer, one would have thought, was “Yes”: see, for example, the Church of England.
And finally…
From the Daily Telegraph: “HMRC targets bereaved families with raid on inheritance tax. Tax authority pulls in £326M as investigations step up following boom in property prices.”
Alternatively: “HMRC collects £326M in taxes owed” – but that’s not much of a headline, is it?
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