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ENGLAND: Government to change Canon Law on Civil Partnerships
August 9, 2005
Anglican Mainstream
http://www.anglicanmainstream.net
the Government proposes to change Church law by order, having obtained consent of the Archbishops' Council and the House of Bishops, to add the term 'civil partner' wherever the term 'spouse' occurs. The result is that Church law is about to be changed to embed the notion of civil partner without a single discussion by General Synod, dioceses or parishes of the Church.
This is because the Civil Partnership Act 2004 contains provisions (sections 255 and 259) enabling the Government to amend and even repeal other legislation in order to give full effect to the purposes of the Act. This includes even amending and repealing church law. The power in relation to church law is exercised by statutory instrument approved by both Houses of Parliament.
At the time of writing there is one draft statutory instrument which deals with church law awaiting such approval, and one statutory instrument still being drafted by parliamentary draftsmen.
The Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Overseas Relationships and Consequential, etc. Amendments) Order 2005 proposes to amend four pieces of church legislation: the Pluralities Act 1838, the Parsonages Measure 1938, the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986, and the Church of England (Legal Aid) Measure 1994.
The Civil Partnership Act (Judicial Pensions and Church Pensions, etc.) Order 2005 will, as its name suggests, amend the church's pensions legislation to give protection to civil partners. It is intended that both these provisions will come into force on the same day as the Act itself, namely 5 December 2005.
Under the proposed amendment to the Pluralities Act, where a surviving spouse of a deceased incumbent is allowed to stay on for two months in the vicarage, that will now read surviving spouse or surviving civil partner.
The amendment to the Parsonages Measure requires the consent of the Church Commissioners if it is proposed to sell the parsonage to a civil partner.
Under the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986, the spouse of an incumbent is not to be present at the meetings held under sections 11 and 12 of that Act (the meeting of the PCC, and the joint meeting of the PCC with the bishop and the patron). This will now be extended to civil partners being excluded from these meetings. The Church of England (Legal Aid) Measure deals with the grant of legal aid to clergy involved in discipline or various other church proceedings. The Legal Aid Commission will now consider the financial means of any civil partner when considering whether to grant legal aid.
Although there is nothing in the Act which requires these statutory instruments to be approved by the church itself, by convention Parliament never legislates for the church without its consent, and so the Minister sought the consent of the House of Bishops and the Archbishops' Council to the proposed new statutory orders. Although the House of Bishops and the Archbishops' Council gave their consent, the result is that church law is about to be changed without a single discussion by General Synod or the dioceses or parishes of the church.
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