The week in which the Revd Mrs Vennells appeared before the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. In other news… 

General Election 2024

So they’re off! Parliament was prorogued on Friday and is to be dissolved this coming Thursday. The result was a scramble to pass a raft of legislation before the shutters came down, during which several bills fell by the wayside.  One of the casualties was the Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief Bill, which would have put the role of the Special Envoy on a statutory footing. Of more general importance, the Renters (Reform) Bill also died – so “no-fault” eviction stays, at least for the time being. The full list of Bills granted Royal Assent on 24 May 2024 is here.

“Religion” in the Scotland Census 2022

On Tuesday, National Records of Scotland published the data from the 2022 Census on religion, ethnic group, country of birth, national identity and language – and, for the first time, a majority of respondents stated that they had no religion: 51.1%, up from 36.7% in 2011.

The increase in people with no religion coincided with a decrease in those who said that they belonged to the Church of Scotland. In 2022, 20.4% responded ‘Church of Scotland’, down from 32.4% in 2011 and from 42.4% in 2001; however ‘Church of Scotland’ remained the largest group among those who said that they had a religion. The next largest religious groups were ‘Roman Catholic’ (13.3%), ‘Other Christian’ (5.1%) and ‘Muslim’ (2.2%).

A registration threshold for charities in Northern Ireland?

On Monday, the Northern Ireland Department for Communities launched a public consultation on a threshold below which charities would no longer be required to register with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland or to provide an annual report and accounts. The move follows new permissive powers in the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. The Department proposes an annual income of £20,000 or above for registration and suggests that such a move could reduce the administrative burden on small charities and reduce barriers to volunteering. This has obvious implications for small charities and places of worship. The consultation closes on 11 August.

The Department is holding a series of consultation information sessions to assist charities in responding to the questionnaire: advance booking is required, links here.

And no-fault divorce?

On Monday in the Northern Ireland Assembly, MLAs overwhelmingly backed a motion by Sinn Féin MLA Nicola Brogan calling for amendment of the Matrimonial Causes (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 to allow applications for a divorce without apportioning blame to either party. In reply, the Finance Minister, Dr Caoimhe Archibald, said that she would ask officials to look at policy options, suggesting that Northern Ireland might want to consider alternative approaches that reflect the values and views of society and would deliver on the same goals. She also said that any reform of divorce law would have to come later in the current Assembly mandate, which runs to 2027.

The Department of Finance is already planning to introduce legislation in 2025 to increase the minimum age for marriage and civil partnership from 16 to 18 and to give belief marriages overseen by humanist celebrants equal legal status with religious marriage. [With thanks to Irish Legal News.]

Assisted dying in Jersey

On Wednesday, the States of Jersey approved a proposal by the Council of Ministers that the Minister for Health and Social Services should bring forward legislation to permit assisted dying in Jersey and establish an assisted dying service.

Disregarding the faculty jurisdiction (1)

On 21 May, Shirani Herbert, Legal Correspondent of the Church Times, reviewed the unfortunate sequence of events in Re St Bartholomew Bristol [2024] ECC Bri 1, for which the judgment commenced: “To say that the events in this application are unfortunate would be an understatement”. The unlawful work consisted of the destruction in 2017 and 2018 of an area described as either a “porch screen”, a “vestibule” or a “draught lobby”, and the removal of a pair of wooden doors and their replacement by the installation of a pair of glass-panelled doors between the main entrance porch and the body of the church. 

Aside from the judgment, there was an element of natural justice:

“the inadvertent removal of the vestibule caused a problem in the following winter with the cold air blowing into the church because both sets of wooden doors, the main external ones and the inner doors had to remain open…poor advice with regards to heating… proved woefully inadequate, so it was vital that the inner doors remained closed. Closed inner doors were…unwelcoming” [18].

Disregarding the faculty jurisdiction (2)

Meanwhile, in Re St James Ravenfield [2024] ECC She 1, the Petitioner sought retrospective permission for a wooden surround and blue slate chippings installed without permission and contrary to the diocesan churchyard rules on a grave containing the remains of his grandparents. Singleton Ch commented [emphasis added]:

“[1]. …For a number of reasons good and bad which do not need to be catalogued in this short judgment, this matter has taken a very long time and is mired with indignant high feelings on the part of the Petitioner. He has declined to pay the Registry fees for his Petition and described the rules which required such a Petition as ‘pathetic’”.

Dismissing the Petition and permitting/directing the removal of the wooden surround and blue slate chips by the PCC as soon as practical, the Chancellor concluded:

“I do not propose to make any provision as to the costs of this matter; the Petitioner is highly unlikely to comply with any costs order made against him and the costs and time that would be required to enforce any such order would be disproportionate to the amount involved“.

A fuller review will be included in the monthly roundup of judgments.

Quick links

• Charity Commission: Charity campaigning in a general election year: on “the rules on political activity and campaigning and how they are regulated as a general election approaches”.
• Thibaut Lesseliers, Strasbourg Observers: Föderation der Aleviten Gemeinden in Österreich v. Austria: The ECtHR’s silent expansion of the associational dimension of the freedom to manifest religion.
• Theodor Schilling, EJIL: Talk!: Animal Welfare Beats Freedom of Religion: yet another critical comment on the ECtHR’s judgment in Executief van de Moslims van België et al. v Belgium.
• Joe Williams, Church of England: Images and copyright: A guide to using images online legally: we have commented on this several times ourselves, but this is an up-to-date explainer.