The Judicial Council decided not to hold a Spring session this year. The last time that happened was in 1990 when again it was a Spring session for which the docket was so small, they felt a meeting was unjustified.
None of the Fall 2017 cases were explicitly deferred. And none of the various groups listed in the Discipline (see Paragraph 2609 for them) as having the right to appeal to the Council have been reported by the United Methodist News Service as having done so.
The announcement of January 16, 2018, was very brief. “To be good stewards of church funds, the council will defer two docket items that had been submitted for April to its October meeting.
Based on that, it appears that two cases in judicial process have not moved to the point where the Council can be called upon to act. To the best of my knowledge, the complaint against Bishop Oliveto is in the hands of a counsel for the Church and is being prepared for presentation for a Committee on Investigation in the Western Jurisdiction. In the Northeastern Jurisdiction, no news has been published about complaints against a superintendent. Both cases would have to go to trial, carry appeals to their respective jurisdictions, and then be appealed to the Judicial Council.
With timelines like those, the Council was not expecting action on those two cases but on other matters not reaching public disclosure. No docket has been published for April.
As important, given there is no urgency in whatever the Council might have considered, it was a significant money saving decision to carry those things over to the Fall 2018 session. Remember, four members do not reside in the United States. Two are from Africa, one from Europe, and one from the Philippines.
