There have been a number of tribunal decisions on the admissibility of discrimination claims concerning ‘belief’ as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. Some have favoured the claimant, establishing, inter alia, that opposition to fox hunting and hare-coursing, a belief in the ‘higher purpose’ of public service broadcasting and a commitment to vegetarianism constitute ‘philosophical beliefs’ for the purposes of the Equality Act. Others do not, such that a belief in wearing a poppy or, in contrast with an earlier decision, a commitment to vegetarianism do not qualify. The admissibility of these claims tended to turn on the extent to which the belief in question was considered cogent or was sufficiently weighty and substantial. In Forstater v CGD Europe & Anor, whether or not a belief fell into the protected category focused on the rather different issue of whether or not it was worthy of respect because of its compatibility (or otherwise) with the dignity and rights of others.

The trial of Bishop Edward King (1829–1910) and the judgment which issued from it proved a landmark in the history of the Victorian Church of England. The judgment was also a turning point in the history of the Catholic Revival, and the bitter series of ritual disputes to which it gave rise. Edward Norman categorised the trial as ‘One of the most important, as well as one of the most extraordinary episodes in the religious history of the nineteenth century.’ R. W. Church, Dean of St Paul's, hailed the judgment as ‘The most courageous thing that has come out of Lambeth for the last 200 years.’ Others, inevitably, given the passions roused by the ritualist controversy, took a more jaundiced view; but few serious Church people were indifferent to the result.

‘The manner of appointment [of bishops] reflects the delicate balance between the established nature of the Church of England and its autonomous self-governance.’ As with most matters of Church of England ecclesiology and polity, the process of the appointment of bishops in the Church of England is firmly rooted within the reforms of the sixteenth century, but has origins which stretch back to the mediaeval Church. This comment article focuses on the appointment of diocesan bishops in the Church of England.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, Doctors' Commons enjoyed a final flowering before its eradication in the 1860s, and its leading members once again achieved a reputation for scholarship and intellectual distinction. Lord Eldon's brother, William Scott (1745–1836), Lord Stowell, undoubtedly bears a considerable part of the credit for raising the public standing of the Civilian profession. Scott was a remarkable man, and his career was not a conventional one. Fellow and Tutor of University College, Oxford, at the age of nineteen—in the very year that his neighbour Blackstone across the High became Vinerian Professor—he was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple the year after taking his D.C.L., and by 1794 was a bencher of his Inn and a distinguished ecclesiastical judge. Yet not only was Dr Scott a Civilian and a barrister, he also taught for several years at Oxford as Reader in Ancient History, and served as a member of Parliament. In law and politics, Stowell shared the conservative instincts of his brother. While professing to value the principle of religious toleration, he was strenuously opposed to Roman Catholic emancipation in Ireland, which he felt would be ‘setting fire to the country’, while in the Commons in 1815 he urged that sectarians should not be excused from contributing to the maintenance of the established Church. In a letter to Joseph Story in 1820 he explained his opposition to all manner of reform, including moderate reform; the latter he considered particularly dangerous, because a modest reform was easily made and then the violent reformers would rush into the breach.

The subject of the sixth meeting of the Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers in Rome 2005 was the Roman Catholic position that Anglican orders are invalid. The meeting employed a canonical framework to explore the status and terms of Apostolicae curae (1896) and the modern applicability of the canonical issues of intent, matter, form, and minister to the question of Anglican orders. The meeting did not examine pneumatological aspects of ordination. This article seeks to set alongside each other the ritual elements of the liturgy for the ordination of priests in both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches in their respective canonical contexts. It proposes the value of a pneumatological approach for possible Roman Catholic recognition of the vitality of Anglican orders. A draft of this paper was presented to the seventh meeting of the Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers in Johannesburg in February 2006, where it was favourably received.

In his address to the April meeting, the archbishop raised questions about the high business rates placed on the steel industry in the UK and the crisis faced by Welsh steelworkers, the elections for members of the Welsh Assembly and the forthcoming referendum on Europe. He reminded the Governing Body that the right to vote was won at a price and that, as Christians, we had a moral duty to exercise that right. The archbishop, considering the recent death of his wife, Hilary, also spoke of bereavement and dying in general. Palliative care and the hospice movement had come a long way in fifty years; if he had not already been persuaded by the arguments against assisted dying, watching the care and the gentleness of hospice nurses, for whom nothing was too much trouble, would have convinced him.

I am grateful to the Society for the opportunity to mark the centenary of the Enabling Act and the beginning of the Church Assembly with some reflection on an often ignored but highly valuable feature of that inauguration: the Single Transferable Vote or STV. I tried on one respected registrar recently an illustration of what the task must be like for those who do not welcome it. Was it, I suggested, like a blind person doing a jigsaw where the pieces were all shaped differently from each other – in other words, where the blind person could ensure that it was put together accurately, but on the other hand never saw the picture? The response was that that picture reflected accurately how it had in fact felt to that registrar. That might suggest that this lecture should be explaining and commending STV as general good practice, but in the event the process and virtues of STV have here to be largely taken for granted. I offer here one short commendation of STV.

On 9 January 2008, Dr Evan Harris, MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, brought forward the following new clause to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill: ‘The offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel are abolished’. His proposal had wide cross-party support and had also attracted backing from the House of Lords in the persons of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, and the former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harris of Pentregarth.

The twentieth Annual Congress of the European Consortium for Church and State Research was held in Järvenpää in Finland, on the subject of Religion in Criminal Law. It was held at the Training College of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, hosted by and ceremonially opened by Matti Repo, Bishop of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland, Joni Hiitola from the Ministry of Education and Professor Sophie van Bijsterveld, President of the European Consortium.

Although much of the business of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland relates to legislation and debates of reports from committees, unlike the synods of episcopal churches the General Assembly is also a court, with exclusive jurisdiction in ‘matters spiritual’. However, under the terms of Act III 2001, as amended, disciplinary matters are investigated by a Presbyterial Commission and, in disputed cases, ultimately come before the Assembly's Judicial Commission. Cases before the General Assembly were once quite common; but for the 2009 Assembly to find themselves hearing a judicial dispute was very unusual indeed.

In the decades that followed the close of the Second Vatican Council, great progress was made in the dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church. During that period, the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) was founded in 1967 by Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury (Michael Ramsey). The rich and common heritage shared by Anglicans and Roman Catholics found expression in the work and statements of ARCIC. In the background was the work of theologians, historians, liturgists and Scripture scholars, and many relationships were being cultivated locally in dioceses and parishes around the world. While the possible significance of Church law had been recognised in the 1974 World Council of Churches Report, Christian Unity and Church Law, there has been no sustained discussion of canon law in the work of ARCIC.