JCM 1177

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1297&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189

This is one of those kinds of rulings that drives advocates nuts. Arcane laws disrupt what should be a clear decision. Having done some consulting on this case, I share the advocate’s frustration.

This Philippines case has been brought to the Council three times before on other matters (JCDs 1149, 1152, and 1162).

What the Council does not (or cannot?) say relates to the six items the committee on investigation acknowledged. The committee simply said that those six items identified that someone brought accusations. When it came to the specific items that were the allegations, the committee did not accept them as true and so they dropped the case and did not forward it to trial.

That would ordinarily end the matter. The church may not appeal a decision favorable to the respondent unless egregious errors were made. The Council figured failure to report the committee on investigation’s ruling on the two other charges was worth something. I wish they had specifically remanded the case back to them. By being unclear about that, the advocates and the church were left in limbo.

The college of bishops used a request for a declaratory decision on the legality of the committee on investigation’s failure to forward the charges instead of appealing to the central conference appellate committee, essentially circumventing the Discipline’s block to a church appeal.

Instead of calling the action of the college of bishops an inappropriate way to get around a decision in the judicial process, the Council used their jurisdiction requirements to avoid a decision.

Again, the Council did not call upon anyone to report back to them, though that would have been hard to justify if they felt they had no jurisdiction. And if they had no jurisdiction, they could not really comment in a ruling about the end-run the college of bishops was trying. I wish someone had written a concurring opinion which spelled out in a little more detail some of the problems within this case. But who had time given this busy docket?