A distressing example of double conveyancing came to light in Reed v Madon. A family had purchased exclusive rights of burial in a private burial ground, but one of the plots was resold, and a burial under this second title occurred before the original grantees had time to object. On the facts, the loss of the exclusive burial right could be effectively compensated in damages. This removed the need for Morritt J. to rule on some of the interesting points of law raised by exclusive burial rights. There was no authority concerned solely with a private burial ground. It was necessary therefore to argue by analogy from corresponding rights granted in other burial places, especially churchyards. It is now proposed to explore these issues.

If a person has been duly sworn as a witness in a judicial proceeding, he must answer any relevant question put to him. If he does not do so, he risks being held by the judge to be in contempt of court and punished by being imprisoned or fined. The fact that the witness finds it repugnant to his sense of honour to give an answer which will break a confidence reposed in him by someone else does not excuse him from his duty. The public interest in the disclosure of all matters relevant to a judicial proceeding is regarded as so important that it prevails over any considerations of private honour between individuals. It is simply no answer for a witness to say ‘I was told this in confidence by a person who trusted me to keep his confidence’. This general attitude of English law has obvious and unwelcome implications for clergymen. A priest or clergyman will in the course of his ministry often receive private information from members of his flock, which his priestly duty requires him to keep secret. He might well be obliged to choose between disregarding his priestly duty or suffering legal penalties, which may be severe. Moreover, the prospect of having to submit him to this invidious choice will be repugnant to the judge; and the fact of such a choice being put, and of the clergyman being sent to gaol for doing his duty, is bound to cause dismay in large sections of the public. The possibility of this conflict of church and state actually happening is extremely small, but the fact that it exists at all is dismaying to many persons.

The Law Commission has consulted on provisional proposals for reform of the law governing how and where couples can get married in England and Wales. This article gives an overview of those proposals, with particular focus on religious weddings, including Anglican weddings. It examines proposed changes to each aspect of the process of getting married, from the preliminaries to the people required to officiate at the wedding, the permitted locations and the rules governing the content of the ceremony. The article argues that the legal status of marriage itself is highly flexible, recognising a range of unions. The proposed reforms aim to reflect the diverse range of views about the meaning of marriage, and ensure that the way in which the law recognises a legally binding wedding fits with the many different traditions according to which religious groups celebrate the formation of marriage.

I hope that I shall have the sympathy of the Society in attempting to respond to a request to speak about the legal implications of a body which had no standing in canon, ecclesiastical, civil or common law. The Lambeth Conference was a gathering of persons individually invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury to meet him for three weeks in the University of Kent at Canterbury. Finance for the meeting came from a number of corporate bodies but none of them had any control over what happened. The Archbishop had asked a number of persons to assist him in the organisation of the meeting but the ultimate control of it was in his hands, subject to the willingness of those who were there to fall in with what was proposed. During the last week of the meeting some seventy resolutions were passed, but none of them, with one possible exception, has any legal effect of any kind.

The past year or so has seen a number of incidents where a public service has been disrupted by a group of people seeking to make a point through the attendant publicity. An example occurred in February 1995 when the gay rights group ‘Outrage’ disrupted the enthronement of the Bishop of Guildford. Such an incident inevitably gives rise to questions of law, and this article intends to survey very briefly the law which is particularly applicable in cases where there are disturbances in places of worship. Of course, both the general law concerning public order and the common law relating to breach of the peace also apply as much within churches as without. However, much is written about them elsewhere.

The office of archdeacon has its origins in the early history of the Church. The archdeacon is referred to by St. Jerome and other writers of the fourth century. He was the principal deacon of a local church. The eminent Victorian ecclesiastical lawyer, Sir Robert Phillimore wrote: ‘The primitive offices of the archdeacon may be enumerated under five heads. First, to attend the bishop to the altar and to order all things relating to the inferior clergy and ministrations in the church. Secondly, to assist the diocesan in the distribution and management of the ecclesiastical revenues.’

In November, the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator issued a joint publication, ‘Reporting of relevant matters of interest to UK charity regulators’, urging auditors and independent examiners to be more proactive about reporting concerns that may arise during their examination of charity accounts. This is in addition to the guidance on matters of material significance that must be reported as a legal duty: the new publication provides examples of the matters that may be reported to the charity regulators if an auditor or independent examiner has any cause for concern. The regulators’ basic message is, ‘If in doubt, report it’.

The Civil Partnership Act 2004 is a groundbreaking piece of legislation, giving legal recognition to same-sex relationships and providing equality of treatment in regard to inheritance and other financial matters with that enjoyed by married couples. The legislation was opposed by certain religious communities for a variety of reasons. This article is the text of an address delivered by Lord Falconer of Thoroton to the annual conference of the Ecclesiastical Law Society on 1 April 2006. It provides a personal reflection on the nature of the legislation and the necessity for its enactment, and seeks to demonstrate that the concept of civil partnership does not undermine the nature of marriage. It also discusses the Act in the context of law and social attitudes with particular reference to the Hart/Devlin debate of the 1950s and 1960s.

This article discusses the application of the proportionality test which the Court of Session in Scotland and the European Court of Human Rights carried out when reviewing the limitations to worship and public gatherings imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article concludes that judges should not use the proportionality standard of review as an avenue to circumvent their duty of neutrality towards religious dogmas.

The title of this article is deliberately provocative: what meaning can be attached to a concept which lacks all the classic jurisprudential marks of authority, by those who concern themselves with the legal aspects of Anglican churches? Conversely, what lessons can be learned by them from the very persistence of such a concept over so very many years?

As predicted, the Charities Act 2011, which consolidates the Recreational Charities Act 1958, the Charities Act 1993 and many of the provisions of the Charities Act 2006, received Royal Assent on 14 December and came into force on 14 March 2012, three months after its enactment.

The period under review began with a speech by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to the Cinnamon Network, a faith-based charities group, in which he emphasised the Government's continued financial support and commitment to faith groups, while acknowledging with more than a touch of frustration that they can face barriers in terms of securing funding from local authorities: