Ecclesiastical law trumps Employment law

Last year we were writing about the issue of whether a vicar can claim unfair dismissal. The Methodist minister Hayley Preston was successful in the Court of Appeal before Christmas. However, the Reverened Mark Sharpe was told at a pre-hearing review that he was not an employee of the Church of England.

In a decision that was widely touted as changing an old principle of law, the Court of Appeal in December reasoned that a Methodist minister was an employee by following dicta of Lady Hale that said,

the spiritual role of a minister could not by itself justify denying contractual effect to an arrangement which otherwise had the indicia of a contract.

There was also a case about the Bishop of Portsmouth, who is able to be held liable for the alleged abuses of a priest in his parish. At the time of that hearing the Church of England said that Ecclesiastical regulations about office holders entitling them to rights similar to those of employees gave them,

rights akin to some employment-related rights, whilst  preserving the autonomy that, as office-holders, the parochial clergy of the Church of England have always enjoyed and which they continue to value.

The Tribunal is reported as having decided that Mr Sharpe is not an employee. In the words of the Bishop of Worcester, “The employment tribunal has recognised that those clergy who are freehold incumbents are not employees of the bishop, the diocesan board of finance or anyone else.”

Although there were recent precedents each case will turn on its facts – such as the effect of pay, autonomy, and the nature of any contract.

Vicars in the Church of England are subject to different terms to those of the Methodist Church, and it seems that the Tribunal agrees that ecclesiastical law concerning our established church denies Mr Sharpe the status of employee.

Maintaining this divide between ecclesiastical and employment law might be seen archaic. But the point made by the Bishop was that this preserves the independence of vicars, which enables them to minister to their parish as they see fit, free from control or interference.

An example of the benefits of independent clergy is that it helps to maintain the quirks of each parish. There is a village in Bedfordshire called Pavenham, which is part of a three parish benefice. All three parishes share one vicar. Pavenham is the only church in the benefice (indeed in the diocese) that doesn’t observe the peace. That is a ritual where you all shake hands and wish each other “peace be with you.” At that point in the service there is merely a brief pause. As the local joke goes: “there’s no peace in Pavenham.”

Vicars for the last sixty years (on testament of a senior member of the village) have all fallen into line with this. If they were employees in a stricter hierarchy quirks like that may be lost. It’s a small example, but that’s the sort of localism the church wants to preserve.