The Marriage (Wales) Act 2010 illustrates that a disestablished church will always occupy an intermediate position between an established church and one which has never been established: the Church in Wales needed an Act to reform its marriage law, whereas paradoxically the Church of England legislated for itself by Measure. The article outlines how the provisions on marriage evolved during the passage of the disestablishment legislation; accepts the validity of contemporaneous arguments based on inconsistency; and outlines previous occasions when the marriage laws of England and of Wales have fallen out of step. It concludes by accepting that the continued establishment of the marriage law in Wales is inconsistent, but that any change is likely to depend on a wholesale reform of marriage law.

This article deals with the relation between God and the secular legal systems of Western liberal democracies. It provides a normative argument for the compatibility of God and secular legal reasoning. In our age, in which believing in God is no longer socially axiomatic and the right to religious freedom protects all kinds of theistic and non-theistic religious beliefs, creeds and first philosophies, it seems contrary to religious neutrality for secular legal systems to single out God. This article instead argues that, although God and religion are inextricably intertwined, they affect the legal system in different ways because they are ontologically different. God cannot be reduced to a mere component of theistic religion. A proper understanding of secularisation might call for keeping God outside the legal system but not for driving God out of the public sphere of democratic societies. Secular legal systems are not atheist legal systems; they are legal systems ‘without religion’ but not ‘without God’. Secularisation implies some degree of minimal recognition of God as a metalegal concept. The specific degree of recognition of God appropriate for any given political community depends on its cultural and communitarian identity and should be subject to the rules of democratic procedures and majorities. This is the metalegal God.

Archbishop Dr Barry Morgan having retired, the presidential address at the April meeting was given by the Senior Bishop, the Rt Revd John Davies, Bishop of Swansea and Brecon, on behalf of all of the bishops of the Church, with the emphasis on evangelism – which set the tone for the rest of the Governing Body meeting.

Churches, in common with other unincorporated associations, thrive on a healthy dynamic amongst their members whose energies and gifts, properly harnessed, can serve to promote mission and witness, to build up the community of faith and to evangelise with vigour and integrity. Not infrequently, however, in both aspiration and application, the conduct of believers (individually and corporately) can fall short of that paradigm and the result can be destructive and debilitating. This paper identifies and explores areas within the current structures of the Church of England where express provision already exists for a formal process of mediation or other Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), suggesting that greater use of mediation in the future would be beneficial to the Church of England functionally, spiritually and (not least) financially.1

The Labour Government (1997–2010) created a large number of new laws affecting religion. The Blair and Brown years saw the incorporation of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law, the creation of religiously-aggravated offences, the recognition of civil partnerships, and a tide of legislation affecting education, charities and equality law, which saw the extension of the law to cover discrimination on grounds of religion or belief. And all this legislation has resulted in an abundance of case law. There is more ‘religion law’ – national and international law affecting religion – than ever before. And, for some time, there has been an implicit tension in English law between this new religion law and older laws protecting religion. These old laws, many still on the statute books, were based upon a different premise. They often sought to protect Christianity in general (or the Church of England in particular) as the norm, while providing some degree of toleration for other faiths. Moreover, the legal regulation of religion was characterised by a lightness of touch. The new religion law, by contrast, is facilitative, seeking to protect religious freedom mainly as an individual right which needs to be balanced against other rights. No special protection is afforded to any one religion and protection is often afforded to non-religious beliefs. The new legal framework affords utmost importance to the concept of religious neutrality as the State takes on the role of facilitating the religious market place. The tension between the old laws on religion and the new ‘religion law’ can be seen, for example, in the abolition of the offence of blasphemy (which favoured the Church of England in particular) and its replacement by offences concerning religious hatred (which covers all religions). This tension has recently come to the fore in the Court of Appeal ruling in the application for leave to appeal in McFarlane v Relate Avon Limited.

On 21 April, Dominic Raab resigned as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, to be replaced by Alex Chalk KC. On 8 May, The Times reported that the Bill of Rights Bill was to be dropped and that the Ministry of Justice had told its reporters that the new Justice Secretary had been ‘looking carefully’ at the Bill, while another Government source had described the Bill as a ‘complete mess’.

In this paper, the authors present different views of the legal implications of Percy v Church of Scotland Board of National Mission, in which the House of Lords reversed the Court of Session and held that a former minister could sue the Church under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and, contrary to previous views, probably had an enforceable contract for services. Cranmer describes the basis for the decision and suggests that it represents a realistic view of the employment status of clergy. Peterson is less optimistic about the decisions legal and practical effects and argues that it undermines the constitutional status of the Church of Scotland as well as overall prospects for religious freedom in Scotland.

The Second Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers took place at St George's House, Windsor Castle, from 31st May to 3rd June 2000. The Colloquium was hosted by the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff Law School under the leadership of Professor Norman Doe, whose recent appointment to a personal chair at Cardiff University was a cause of much celebration amongst the participants. The Colloquium was designed to build upon the pioneering work of a similar venture convened last year in Rome by the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas which, together with Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA, cosponsored the event. A report of the first Colloquium appears at (1999) 5 Ecc LJ 281.

This article explores the Law Commission's proposals on how and where people can get married in England and Wales as found in their ‘Getting Married’ Consultation Paper. It examines the extent to which the Commission's proposals will deal with or mitigate concerns expressed about two types of non-qualifying wedding ceremonies: ‘unregistered religious marriages’ where the couple undergo a religious ceremony that does not comply with the requirements of the Marriage Act 1949, and ‘non-religious marriages’ where the ceremony is conducted by celebrants representing a belief organisation (such as Humanists UK) or by independent celebrants and so is also outside the Marriage Act 1949 and not currently legally binding. The article largely welcomes the Commission's proposals but expresses concern about the proposed officiant system and how it defines belief organisation; the proposed changes to the law on validity; and the creation of a new criminal offence. The article develops these three points further and contends that, while a transformed weddings law could recognise non-religious marriages and reduce the number of unregistered religious marriages, the introduction of statutory cohabitation rights upon separation is needed to truly deal with concerns over unregistered religious marriages.

Questions of the mutual recognition, or not, of the ministry of different Churches have been high on the ecumenical agenda for many years. Roman Catholic sacramental theology, manifest inter alia in Canon Law, has a clear understanding of the validity or invalidity of sacraments, including holy orders. Validity is a strong word and implies that sacramental acts which are not valid are de facto ineffective.

Although it is indisputable that Muslims have been in Britain for centuries now, it is the events of the recent past that has increasingly focussed attention on the presence of what is now one of Britain's largest minorities. Like numerous other religious minorities in the United Kingdom, Muslims have established themselves and largely conduct their religious and cultural practices within the confines of English law. The aim of this article is to investigate how English law deals with Islam and the regulation, recognition and accommodation, if any, of certain Muslim practices, such as religious divorces and marriages and the establishment of places of worship. The article does not aim to be comprehensive in its coverage of all the issues raised by the Muslim population in the United Kingdom, especially the criminalisation of certain political activities which some Muslims consider to be religious obligations, but simply attempts to analyse how in some respects British Muslims regulate their activities and how a parallel but non-recognised legal system is now in operation and the extent to which English law makes provision for British Muslims and their practices, beliefs and needs.

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.

Society has historically viewed suicide with hostility and fear. For centuries this hostility was reflected in the English civil law, which condemned suicide as homicide, and in the Church's position towards suicide victims, which historically considered suicide to be a mortal sin. Under the current canon law, set out in Canon B 38, it is the duty of the minister to bury all parishioners, those who die in the parish, or those entered on the electoral roll of the parish according to the rites of the Church of England, except for (among others) those who ‘being of sound mind have laid violent hands upon themselves’. This canon has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years as society's attitudes towards suicide have become more tolerant. As a result, General Synod recently voted that this canon should be amended. This article explores the development of the law relating to suicide victims in order to understand the Church's current position. It then considers the shortcomings of the current canon law and reviews the position adopted by the Roman Catholic and Methodist churches. Finally, it examines the proposals for changing Canon B 38.

This article examines the unique risks associated with Islamic financial institutions and the secular state's reticence to directly regulate their religious dimension. It argues that the state's method of regulating the Islamic financial industry ignores special reputational risks associated with the religious and cultural distinctiveness of Islamic banks.

The freedom of the individual can easily come into conflict with his or her obligation to integrate in society. The case of Belcacemi and Oussar v Belgium provides a good example. It is evident that some restrictions of citizens’ freedoms must be accepted for a state to function and, more basically, persist; as a consequence, it is acceptable that certain demands, incorporated in criminal law, are made of citizens. The issue of the extent to which such restrictions are justified has increasingly become a topic of discussion. The present case raises a number of important questions with respect to the right to wear a full-face veil in public if the societal norm is that the face should be visible, the most salient of which are whether women should be ‘protected’ from unequal treatment against their will and to what extent society may impose values on the individual. I will argue that Belgian law places unwarranted restrictions on citizens and that the values behind it testify to an outlook that is difficult to reconcile with the freedom of conscience and religion.