JCM 1407

ee.umc.org/decisions/81533

 

To rule or Not to Rule, That Is the Question

 

The Council of Bishops, Michigan Annual Conference, Philippines Annual Conference, and Sierra Leone Annual Conference were listed by the Bishops as interested parties to seek the testing of a different plan for separation that is being proposed for the upcoming General Conference.  The Council found none had actually passed the plan.  It had come out of an informal working group and sent in as a package of petitions.

 

The Council demurred for more than one reason.  The principle one was this: They did not want to inadvertently give the plan a boost over anything else brought to General Conference.  Unlike the three proposal package they were asked to review for the 2019 special-called General Conference (see JCD 1366), this plan was the only one to be reviewed among all that may have been sent by others to General Conference.  As I recall the situation, the 2018 Bishops’ request was about the main agenda, and was not in competition with other petitions.  Hence, when the Council looked at that situation which actually contained three separate plans, it felt it could determine the constitutionality of the various plans without biasing the choices.  Interestingly, they found one plan mostly consistent with the constitution and the other (the “Traditionalists” plan) not.  Fortunately for the latter group, they had time to revise their petitions prior to General Conference. – The third plan was a set of constitutional amendments which the Council felt it could not review 

 

While the Council uses the theme “plainly understood words” to describe what they do in reading the Discipline, they used a little legalistic legerdemain to say the authorization for them to test constitutionality I ¶2609.2 actually has no time limit so they felt no need to study this new plan prior to its being acted upon by the General Conference.  

 

They apparently felt that argument by counsels representing one or another of the groups listed as interested parties forced them to have to pull something out of their hat to avoid dealing with this new plan.  

 

Then there is the possibility that I misunderstand the matter.  I’ll leave that for you to challenge me if you wish.

 

In our denomination, we have a number of individuals with comprehensive understanding of the Discipline and Judicial Council rulings and they do not happen to be members of the Judicial Council at this time.  The Bishops, annual conferences, and others who may be concerned about constitutionality of petitions have at their disposal various former Council members, conference chancellors, counsels in private practice, parliamentarians, and various clergy who tend to nerd out on church law and could provide valid testing for unconstitutionality and let the Council just deal with questions related to actions rather than dealing with petitions that are really hypothetical prior to any formal action by the Church.

 

Whatever the matter, the Council chose not to rule.  I’m inclined to accept their main argument.  Using the Council to bring special attention to any one petition is manipulative, whether intentionally sought out for that reason or not.