Updated
From the Worcester diocesan website
Court of Appeal upholds clergy freedom
30 Apr 2015 By Sam Setchell
The Court of Appeal has upheld the freedom of clergy to be office holders rather than employees with its judgement in the case regarding former Worcestershire vicar, Mark Sharpe.
The court has agreed with the initial judgement of the Employment Tribunal, which ruled that Mr Sharpe was not an employee of the Bishop, the Diocese or anyone else.
The Bishop of Worcester, the Rt Revd Dr John Inge said: “We are delighted that the Court of Appeal has taken this view of the matter. There has been considerable consultation with the clergy on this issue as well as discussions at General Synod, and clergy have consistently said that they don’t wish to change their status as office holders. To become employees, clergy would lose the freedoms which are at the heart of the Church’s ministry and this is not something that they want to give up.
It is regrettable that UNITE fails to understand the context in which parish clergy exercise their ministry whilst the Church seeks to uphold the freedoms enjoyed by its clergy.”
Bishop John continued: “Mr. Sharpe’s claims of the various incidents which despoiled his ministry in Teme Valley South are disheartening to read. However I am encouraged to note that the clergy who have ministered in these churches both before and since Mr Sharpe’s appointment have all spoken very warmly of the people there and their experience doesn’t reflect any of the negativity that Mr Sharpe claims to have faced.”
BBC News has this brief report: Worcester vicar loses unfair dismissal appeal.
Updates
The full judgment of the Court of Appeal is here.
Frank Cranmer Law & Religion UK Church of England freehold incumbents not “employees”: Sharpe v Bishop of Worcester
Steven Morris The Guardian Vicar who claimed he was victim of four-year hate campaign loses court battle
Gavin Drake Church Times Clergy are office-holders, not employees, appeal court rules
There is a lot that is good about being an office holder, but the reality is that with Common Tenure clergy are being treated more and more like employees. I suspect that the recent raft of reports will result in a further focus on clergy ‘performance’. It can all lead to the suspicion that clergy are treated as de facto employees until the moment that employment rights kick in. Then we are office holders.
Does this drive a hole though any CDM procedure? If you’re not an employee, who has the authority to discipline you or dismiss you?
I make no comments on this specific case. However, I observe that as a priest who has recently moved from being an office-holder to being a diocesan employee (in Worcester diocese), I have been genuinely surprised by how different it feels being an employee, and how much more aware I am of not being a relatively free agent. Not least, I am under different constraints about what I can and can’t say in this election campaign! However, I would also observe that some of the proposed changes of the new reforming agenda being put before the church by the Archbishops’… Read more »
The judgement makes clear that the power to dismiss lies with the English legal system, via Clergy Discipline Tribunals, and not with any “employer”. It suggests that the Tribunal system and its independence from the bishop is part of the evidence that clergy are not his (or her) employees.
There is a case in the RC Diocese of Portsmouth in which the judge said that a priest was not an employee but went onto say that the Bishop was responsible for his actions – this was an abuse case where the accuser withdrew her complaint. Is that judgement in line with Mr Sharpe’s case?
The Bp of Worcester, “There has been considerable consultation with the clergy on this issue as well as discussions at General Synod, and clergy have consistently said that they don’t wish to change their status as office holders. To become employees, clergy would lose the freedoms which are at the heart of the Church’s ministry and this is not something that they want to give up.” This seems to me to be the heart of the matter. Clergy are used to ‘their freedoms’ which has included the freedom to abuse when the only concern of the church has been to… Read more »
This ruling has given the C of E permission to continue to discriminate and victimise clergy with no consequence and no recourse in law and no earthly protection. The Bishops will continue to bully and destroy clergy lives at will, just because they don’t like particular clergy. It is completely insane to create a legal situation where the Bishops are untouchable.
This case is not that significant. If anything, it is a recipe for lawyers to make more money as each case needs to be decided on its facts. One aspect of the case that is relevant is that it is no longer adequate automatically to cast clergy in their own ‘office holder’ category and state that they cannot therefore be employees (or workers). The Revd Mark Sharpe needed to show that he was an ”employee” in order to claim for constructive dismissal. However, which clergy can point to an employment contract? Interestingly, the case might have been different if he… Read more »
The “self employed office holder” status of Anglican clergy is a convenient legal fiction which serves the church well, although they are De Facto employees – employees in all but name. At one time this free range status was held to apply to all clergy but fairly recent court cases relating to both Methodist and Roman Catholic clergy have challenged that assumption. It remains to be seen how much longer it remains tenable in relation to Anglican clergy.