swarb.co.uk - law index
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Ecclesiastical - From: 2001 To: 2001
This page lists 6 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
In Re St Mary the Virgin, Hurley Times, 26 January 2001
26 Jan 2001
ConC
Ecclesiastical
When the court considered an application for exhumation of the body for its reburial abroad, the court could make allowance for the need for comity between nations. The deceased was a national hero in Brazil, and the local parish did not oppose the faculty request. The same principles applied whether the interment was in a churchyard or within the Church. The need for comity in this circumstance was persuasive to establish a good and proper reason for the ground of the faculty. The body would be reinterred in consecrated ground.
1 Cites
Dahlab v Switzerland 42393/98 - Admissibility Decision; [2001] ECHR 899
15 Feb 2001
ECHR
Education, Ecclesiastical
The applicant teacher had converted to Islam, and began wearing a headscarf. The local teaching authority had declared that she could not do so in school. The applicant complained that she had not been allowed to manifest her religion. Held: Freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as enshrined by Article 9 of the Convention, represents one of the foundations of a "democratic society" within the meaning of the Convention. In its religious dimension, it is one of the most vital elements that go to make up the identity of believers and their conception of life, but it is also a precious asset for atheists, agnostics, sceptics and the unconcerned. The pluralism indissociable from a democratic society, which has been dearly won over the centuries, depends on it. While religious freedom is primarily a matter of individual conscience, it also implies freedom to manifest one's religion. Bearing witness in words and deeds is bound up with the existence of religious convictions. However: "weighing the right of a teacher to manifest her religion against the need to protect pupils by preserving religious harmony, the Court considers that, in the circumstances of the case and having regard, above all, to the tender age of the children for whom the applicant was responsible as a representative of the State, the Geneva authorities did not exceed their margin of appreciation and that the measure they took was therefore not unreasonable."
European Convention on Human Rights
[ Bailii ]
Helen Percy v An Order and Judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal Dated 22 March 1999 [2001] ScotCS 65; 2001 SC 757
20 Mar 2001
SCS
Lord President and Lord Cameron of Lochbroom and Lord Caplan
Scotland, Employment, Discrimination, Employment, Ecclesiastical
Mrs Percy was a minister in the church. She appealed rejection of her claim for unfair dismissal and sex discrimination. Held: the court considered whether Ms Percy was employed by the Board of National Mission in terms of a 'contract personally to execute any work or labour'. After reviewing the authorities the Lord President enunciated a principle that where an appointment was made to a recognised form of ministry within the Church of Scotland, and where the duties of that ministry were essentially spiritual, it was to be presumed there was no intention that the arrangements made with the minister would give rise to obligations enforceable in the civil law. The presumption was rebuttable. In the present case the Lord President was not persuaded the parties intended to create relations enforceable in the civil courts. There was a rebuttable presumption that: "where the appointment was being made to a recognised form of ministry within the Church and where the duties of that ministry would be essentially spiritual, there would be no intention that the arrangements made with the minister would give rise to obligations enforceable in the civil law."
1 Citers
[ Bailii ] - [ ScotC ]
Wallbank and Wallbank v Parochial Church Council of Aston Cantlow and Wilmcote With Billesley, Warwickshire; CA 17-May-2001 - Gazette, 01 June 2001; Times, 15 June 2001; Gazette, 21 June 2001; [2001] EWCA Civ 713; [2002] Ch 51
Pichon And Sajous v France 49853/99 - Admissibility Decision; [2001] ECHR 898
2 Oct 2001
ECHR
Human Rights, Health Professions, Ecclesiastical
Three women had been refused the supply of contraceptives prescribed for hem by their doctors by the claimant pharmacists, who were later found to have infringed their duties of supply. The claimants had argued that they had the right to apply their ehical or relgious principles, but the court found that the contraceptives were not abortifacients allowing any such exemption. Held: The compliants were inadmissible: "as long as the sale of contraceptives is legal and occurs on medical prescription nowhere other than in a pharmacy, the applicants cannot give precedence to their religious beliefs and impose them on others as justification for their refusal to sell such products, since they can manifest those beliefs in many ways outside the professional sphere."
European Convention on Human Rights 9
[ Bailii ]
In re All Saints, Hough on the Hill; ConC 28-Nov-2001 - Gazette, 01 February 2002; Times, 01 February 2002
