The best known of all medieval English canonists is William Lyndwood, compiler of the Provinciale. His name derives from what is now Linwood, in Lincolnshire, where his father John (d. 1419) was a woolman, and where (according to his will) he was born. William was sent to Cambridge, where he studied at Gonville Hall and is said to have become a fellow of Pembroke Hall. In the old library of Gonville and Caius College there was an inscription in the window requesting prayers for Lyndwood as ‘hujus collegii quondam commensalis’. His lectures have not survived, and the exact dates of his university residence are not known; but he was certainly a doctor of both laws by 1407, when he was ordained priest. By that time he already held a number of benefices – the earliest we know of was the wardenship of a hospital in 1396 – and he was to collect many more in the course of his career. These were not actual occupations, but sources of income intended to maintain a lawyer destined for high office.

The Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 came into force on 1 January 2006. It provides a new structure for dealing with formal complaints of misconduct against members of the clergy, except in relation to matters involving doctrine, ritual or ceremonial, which continue to be governed by the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963. This paper concentrates on the new disciplinary procedures in respect of priests and deacons, rather than those for bishops and archbishops.

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’.

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 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.

Are the University of Cambridge and its colleges peculiars? The university has always claimed independence from episcopal authority for itself and its colleges. A struggle was resolved in 1434 by a tribunal set up by the Pope, in which the Prior of the monastery of Barnwell heard both sides and decided that the University and its colleges were to be exempt from the supervision of the Archbishop of Canterbury and of the Bishop of Ely, in whose diocese the University was situated. This became known as the Barnwell Process. It established the University and it colleges as peculiars defined as having an Ordinary other than the diocesan bishop. Colleges founded later but before the Reformation claimed the same privileges. At the Reformation, the authority of the Pope was replaced by that of the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the privileges that the University and its colleges enjoyed continued to apply. Post-Reformation foundations of colleges tended to claim the same exemptions from episcopal jurisdiction, but without documented evidence. This article argues that the continued acceptance by the Bishop of Ely of the University and its colleges as extra-diocesan confirms them to be peculiars within the legal definition.

Details of complaints under the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 are beginning to come into the public domain. In particular, they raise questions as to the appropriate penalties to be imposed on a respondent, although even more worrying may be the anecdotal misunderstanding among some of the clergy about the moral behaviour expected of them. In addition, procedural questions remain that are not addressed in the written determinations. Such questions include the proper interest in making, and the motive behind, a complaint; the admissibility of hearsay evidence to support a complaint; and episcopal intervention and the bishop's role in reaching his decision.

In the Parliamentary report for February to May I wrote that Lord Falconer's Assisted Dying Bill, reintroduced under the new ballot procedure for private Peers' bills, had little chance of becoming law in the current session. As it turned out, that judgment was a little premature, because Rob Marris came first in the Commons ballot for private Members' bills and decided to introduce an Assisted Dying (No 2) Bill in similar terms to Lord Falconer's. In the event, however, when his Bill had its second reading debate on 11 September – the first occasion on which the Commons had had an opportunity to debate the matter since 1997 – it was decisively defeated, by 330 votes to 118.

The spat at the 2011 Conservative Party conference between the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor showed how contentious human rights legislation remains. Although Theresa May portrayed the claimant as having won the Article 8 right to remain in Britain because of his relationship with his cat, the judge had simply accepted the cat as one piece of evidence that the claimant had a genuine family life with his partner. The Home Secretary's principal point was that the right to respect for private and family life under section 8.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) should be read in conjunction with section 8.2, which adds that such rights should not be overridden except where it is

One of the main goals of the Second Vatican Council (the 50th anniversary of whose opening will be celebrated in 2012) was the unity of all Christians. Not least among its achievements was the fact that it launched the Catholic Church into the Ecumenical Movement and also paved the way for a global revision of the Church's Code of Canon Law. This article reflects from a Roman Catholic perspective on aspects to do with canon law and ecumenism. It does so in the light of the Council's teaching and reception. Conciliar hermeneutics and questions left open at the Council are considered. In conclusion, the author suggests that greater attention to the Church's charismatic principle and missionary mandate underlined at the Council offers wide scope for continuing exploration among Anglican and Roman Catholic canonists in the cause of unity.

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.

The taking of oaths of allegiance to the Crown has a long history pre-dating the Reformation. However, the shifting balance of power in the sixteenth century gave greater political weight to the taking of oaths, and developments in the monarchy were matched by developments in the oaths required of clerics. In the present day all clergy are required to take the Oath of Allegiance prior to ordination and on taking up clerical posts. Other office-holders in the church are also required to do so.

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.

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.