Law and religion roundup – 24th November

“Anyone who wants to be the Archbishop of Canterbury absolutely needs their head reading”

Rt Revd Rachel Treweek

Further fall-out from the Makin Review

Last week, we noted that Sir Jamie Colman and the Revd Sue Colman had been asked to “step back” from their church activities following the publication of the Makin Review into the abuse by John Smyth. On Friday, the Religion Media Centre reported that the Diocese of London had announced that three priests named in the Makin Review have had their Permission to Officiate withdrawn pending investigation. One of the three has also had his PTO withdrawn by the Diocese of Gloucester. 

Writing in the Church Times, Madeleine Davies comments on how Conservative Evangelicals in the Church of England are “reckoning with the legacy of John Smyth’s abuse and its cover-up”. She notes that the Makin Review lists clergy who knew of the abuse coming from “many of the powerhouses of the conservative evangelical constituency in England”. She also notes that the Church of England Evangelical Council indicated that “culture-changing action” is required within the evangelical constituency. Dr Elly Hanson, the clinical psychologist whose psychological analysis of Smyth forms Appendix 4 of the Makin Review, has suggested that “the beliefs and values of the Conservative Evangelical community in which John Smyth operated are critical to understanding how he manipulated his victims into it, how it went on for so long, and how he evaded justice.”

Preventing lawful burial

On Wednesday, the Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Constabulary announced that two people had been charged as part of an investigation into the operation of a funeral parlour in Gosport.

Richard Elkin and Hayley Bell have both been charged with the rare offence of preventing the lawful and decent burial of a dead body between 3 November and 11 December 2023. They have also been charged with other offences, including carrying on a business with intent to defraud creditors or for another fraudulent purpose between 10 August 2022 and 11 December 2023. They have both been bailed to appear at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court on 19 December.

Perhaps the most high-profile recent case of preventing lawful and decent burial was when Hans Kristian Rausing, heir to the owner of Tetra Pak, was charged with the offence on 17 July 2012 after police discovered the corpse of his wife, Eva: he pleaded guilty and received a suspended prison sentence. 

Planning for Papal burial

Vatican News reports that the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff has released the second edition of the Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis; it was approved on 29 April 2024 by Pope Francis, who received the first copy of the printed volume on 4 November. The liturgical book was presented as a new edition following its predecessor, the Editio typica of the Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis approved in 1998 by Pope John Paul II and published in 2000, which was used in the funeral of the same Pontiff in 2005 and, with adaptations, in that of Pope Benedict XVI in 2023.

“A second edition became necessary,” explained Archbishop Diego Ravelli, Master of Apostolic Ceremonies, “first of all because Pope Francis has requested it, as he himself has stated on several occasions of the need to simplify and adapt certain rites so that the celebration of the funeral of the Bishop of Rome may better express the faith of the Church in the Risen Christ.”

Friday prayers and maximum-security prisons

Ali v Secretary of State for Justice [2024] EWHC 2829 (KB) was an appeal against the dismissal of Mr Ali’s claim in the  County Court in Central London. He had sued the Secretary of State under ss.7 and 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 for violations of Article 9 ECHR by failing to facilitate obligatory weekly Friday prayers for Muslims on numerous occasions while he was in the High Security Unit (HSU) at HM Prison Belmarsh between March 2014 and August 2016 [1 & 2]. He sought a declaration that this had “unlawfully breached [his] human rights under article 9(1) of Schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998, pursuant to section 8(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998”, together with damages and costs [3]. He appealed on three grounds:

(1) that the county court had erred in concluding that the “prescribed by law” requirement in Article 9(2) ECHR did not apply, and that, if the “prescribed by law” requirement did apply, it was satisfied;

(2) that the county court had erred in refusing to determine whether Article 9 required the prison to conduct an individual risk assessment of Mr Ali’s attendance at Friday prayers in the main prison of HMP Belmarsh when there was no alternative service in the High Secure Unit; and

(3) that if the county court had concluded that the respondent’s positive obligations under Article 9 were limited to establishing a system for facilitating Friday prayers, it had erred in doing so.

Between 18 December 2015 and 15 August 2016, there were fourteen occasions when there had been no Friday prayers in the HSU (though on 89 per cent of occasions, they had gone ahead as planned), either because there were few Muslim prisoners in the HSU or because the Imam was on sick leave. Mr Ali asked to attend prayers in the other part of the prison outside the HSU but was refused – and he maintained that there was no proper basis for that refusal [12].

On the first ground of appeal, the Court noted that [at 115] the trial judge had determined on the facts that the prison “had a system in place which, in the main, operated well” and, though it was imperfect, was not in breach of Article 9. She had also concluded that when Friday prayers could not be offered for reasons beyond the prison’s control, there was no breach of Article 9(1) – and that conclusion was “unimpeachable” [40]. On the second ground, Mr Ali “had no free-standing right to an individual risk assessment as a substantive right under Article 9(1), and the judge was correct to reject this argument as otiose” [45]. Appeal dismissed [47]. 

Quick links

And finally…I

A rather weird written question by John Glen (Salisbury, Con): “whether the Prime Minister has had discussions with His Majesty’s household on potential steps to support His Majesty in maintaining the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law”.

Which got an extremely polite but entirely well-deserved brush-off: “We do not routinely comment on discussions between the Government and the Royal Household.”

And finally…II

The spam comments, which we get in droves, seem to get dafter and dafter. One recent gem was “Excelplent blog! Do yoou have any hknts for aspiting writers?” Our only hknt is, “do be careful where you aspit”.

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