“The European Court of Human Rights is no more foreign for being situated in Strasbourg, than is the United Nations for being in New York and Geneva…”
Baroness Chakrabarti, HL Deb 24 July 2024 c563
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill [HL]
On Friday, Lord Falconer of Thoroton introduced the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill [HL], “A Bill to allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards, to be assisted to end their own life; and for connected purposes”. It was read the first time and ordered to be printed – though its chances of progress are not very great. (And see the immediate responses, below.) The House of Commons Briefing The Law on Assisted Suicide, published on 24 April 2024 in advance of the Commons debate on 29 April on the e-petition calling on the Government to allocate parliamentary time for a debate and vote on assisted dying, provides a summary of the legislation and includes an overview of selected stakeholder views and the legal position in other jurisdictions.
Sutcliffe v Secretary of State for Education
Last year we reported the panel decision by the Teaching Regulation Authority on the findings that Joshua Sutcliffe was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and/or conduct that might bring the teaching profession into disrepute in relation to misgendering a pupil. On 25 July 2024, he lost his appeal in the UK High Court against a decision to ban him from the profession.
In Sutcliffe v Secretary of State for Education [2024] EWHC 1878 (Admin), Pepperall J commenced his judgment as follows:
“[1]. The laws that protect a person’s freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression apply to teachers just as much as anyone else. A teacher’s right to believe that no one can self-identify as a different gender and that homosexuality is a sin against God is protected by law, but does not entitle the teacher to fail to treat transgender, gay and lesbian pupils with anything short of the dignity and respect with which all schoolchildren must be treated or justify a failure to safeguard the best interests and wellbeing of such children.
[2]. This case is not about a teacher who accidentally failed to follow a school’s policy of referring to a transgender pupil by the child’s chosen pronouns or even about a teacher who reconciled his religious convictions with such policy by choosing to avoid pronouns altogether and referring to the child by name. Rather, it is about a teacher who deliberately used female pronouns to refer to a transgender male pupil both in the classroom and then on national television in such a way that he would be “outed” without any apparent regard for a vulnerable child who was thereby caused significant distress. Further, it is about a teacher who told his class that homosexuality is a sin and implied that homosexuals might be cured through God without any apparent regard for the gay and lesbian children in his class and who made them feel that their teacher regarded them as worthless”.
Protecting groundwater from human burials
On 24 July 2024, the Environment Agency updated its guidance, Protecting groundwater from human burials, in the ‘bespoke permits’ section to link to the latest fees. Trench Arch systems, which are commonly used for water disposal from churches with no access to mains drainage, are subject to authorization through a bespoke permit. On 22 March 2017, we posted How will new position statements impact on development of cemeteries, which outlined the underlying provisions, discussed their application, and examined some of the apparent inconsistencies.
Our monthly review of ecclesiastical court judgments includes new bespoke applications for an environmental permit under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 for discharges into churchyards from trench arch systems, such as those reported in September 2021.
The newest religious World Heritage Site
Gracehill village in County Antrim has been granted cultural World Heritage status by UNESCO. It was founded in 1759 and is home to the only complete Moravian settlement in Ireland. The church still has an active Moravian congregation, and it is also home to the Moravian Archive of Ireland, which contains documents and diaries from a number of Irish congregations dating back over 250 years.
Gracehill becomes the first site in Northern Ireland to be granted cultural World Heritage status: the other Northern Irish site is the Giant’s Causeway.
Regulating kosher slaughter in Canada
In Jewish Community Council of Montreal v Canada (Attorney General) 2024 FC 1163, Régimbald J issued an interlocutory injunction against the application by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency of a requirement imposed by its Guidelines for ritual slaughter of food animals without pre-slaughter stunning on licence-holders of slaughterhouses in their production of kosher meat. The Guidelines require slaughterers to apply three separate tests to the animal to confirm that it is unconscious before suspending it and continuing the slaughtering process. The applicants argued that the imposition of the requirement had “a devastating impact on the supply of kosher meat in Canada” and was “depriving Canadian Jews of an important tenet of their faith”; further, sections 143 and 144 of the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations SOR/2018-108 and the Guidelines were unreasonable or ultra vires and infringed their right to freedom of religion, and were discriminatory under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Issuing the injunction, Régimbald J concluded that there were “serious issues as to whether the CFIA’s Guidelines are unreasonable and whether they encroach on the Applicants’ rights to freedom of religion under subsection 2(a) and right to equality under section 15 of the Charter” and that the evidence demonstrated “a potential for irreparable harm that cannot be adequately compensated with damages” [3]. [With thanks to Howard Friedman.]
Quick links
- Church Mouse blog: Assisted suicide back on Parliamentary agenda.
- Church of England: Bishop of London responds to First Reading of Lord Falconer of Thoroton’s Bill.
And finally…
On Friday, the Ohio Supreme Court held by four votes to three that ‘Boneless’ chicken wings can contain bones and the dissenting justices called the majority opinion “utter jabberwocky”. Yet another example of why we long ago gave up trying to get our heads around US judicial reasoning…