JCD 1413

ee.umc.org/decisions/81536

 

Did They or Didn’t They?

 

During a special called meeting of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference to discuss Discipline changes of the 2019 General Conference, a report was made which included a set of ten recommendations for giving direction to the conference regarding LGBTQIA+ matters.  The recommendations were mostly pastoral, showing care and respect, especially toward teenagers.  Someone asked the bishop if the conference was trying to tell the local churches what to do.  He said in essence, “Not really.”

 

And the Council accepted his decision that the recommendations were moot and hypothetical.  In other words, the vote to accept the ten recommendations was without meaning or effect in church law.

 

Based on comments in concur/dissent section of JCD 1413, that the matter was parliamentary rather than “legal” may have stemmed from the bishop’s decision that the recommendations, while voted on, were not then finally settled because the full report was not ever voted upon.  

 

This is a quirk in annual conference processes where elements of an agency’s or committee’s report to the conference may be voted on but unless the whole report is voted upon, the matter actually fails to become binding for the annual conference.  

 

So the bishop’s response was that the conference had not actually told anyone what to do even though the content of the report was extensively discussed and parts voted upon.  The real effect was that the recommendations were given the support of the respective votes.  Anyone at the session would come away with the impression that the conference e was supporting the LGBTQIA+ community, especially the kids.

 

But technically, the Council went along with the bishop that nothing binding happened.

 

Did they or didn’t they?  Not really, I guess.  But existentially, they did.  And without the word “aspirational” being used.

 

JCD 1414

ee.umc.org/decisions/81537

 

A PR Effort?

 

A second question of law was raised at the Greater New Jersey special called annual conference session.  In summary, the questioner wanted to know if the report could be acted on without a full vote on it.  The bishop gave the same answer that he gave for JCD 1413.  Nothing really happened because the report as a whole did not receive a vote.  

 

In a dissenting opinion, the argument was made that for that reason, the Council was premature in accepting jurisdiction.  The report was interim and would probably become final at the normal session of the conference a few months later.

JCM 1356

www.umc.org/decisions/74484

No Jurisdiction on parliamentary matters

A group of people in South Carolina Annual Conference sought to bring a petition with two parts, one that would ask the General Conference for the option of South Carolina disaffiliating from the United Methodist Church and the other, to set up a committee to study disaffiliation.  The bishop ruled them out of order.  

As the Council pointed out, no one challenged the bishop’s ruling.  The proper action would have been to seek a ruling of the house to overturn the bishop’s decision.  Had they done that and had the plenary session supported the “movants,” then the two-part petition would have been before the conference and the “request for rulings of law” might have come under the jurisdiction of the Council.

As it was, the petition was never formally before the conference.  The Council makes rulings only on something that actually has an effect on something before the conference.

I apologize if that sounds like gobble-de-gook.  For example, that someone is petitioning the General Conference for a way to split off from the denomination in itself is a powerful body blow to the conference.  It’s like asking for a divorce.  But to even get a court to consider taking such an action, there are steps that need to be taken to protect everyone from confusion and to preserve the rights of everyone involved.  Such steps also protect the “movants” and those in the main body from their own possibly misguided feelings.

The emotional impact of the petition is not the same as following parliamentary processes to be sure the petition is properly before the voting body.  The movants need to learn Robert’s Rules of Order.

One more thing:  There is no such thing as a “request for a ruling of law.”  I confess to not knowing where that phrase comes from.  When it is used in the context of a United Methodist conference, it is hard to tell if it is something the bishop should answer or the conference has to vote to forward to the Judicial Council.

The bishop can answer “questions of law.”  The bishop’s answer has the force of law in that annual conference, pending review by the Judicial Council.  The Council reviews those answers and may support, modify, or reverse the bishop’s rulings.  The extent the ruling is supported then becomes law for the whole denomination.

The Judicial Council answers “requests for declaratory decisions.”  While the request is usually in the form of a question, the bishop does not get to make any kind of ruling about the substances of the request.  The bishop may turn in a brief expressing his/her opinion but it carries no weight of law.  The Council’s ruling may or may not agree with the bishop’s brief but it is up to the Council to rule, with or without the support of the bishop.

I think bishops need to start making sure the movants know the difference when they present their “requests for rulings of law” and pick one or the other.  

In most cases, the legal concern is well known before conference.  But it is so tempting to be drama queens.  Bishops too!  

I hope that bishops and movants meet before conference to sort out these technicalities so that the best way to handle the question can be worked out together.  If that had happened in this case, there would have been a better chance for the jurisdiction to be properly handled and the Council would have been able to rule.

JCM 1357

www.umc.org/decisions/74485

No Jurisdiction – A Parliamentary matter

Update (9/23/18):  Hopefully, this edition will give advocates a clearer view of how their efforts may need to include additional steps.

Those in the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference raising the questions of law made a very common mistake.  They forgot to follow a fundamental parliamentary procedure to get the annual conference to actually vote on something that could then be brought to the Judicial Council.  

The bishop ruled a resolution out of order that had been raised and printed in the pre-conference report.  The questioners apparently thought that getting it in the pre-conference journal constituted an action of the conference that could be reviewed by the Council.  They had gone to a great deal of trouble to establish a paper trail regarding their desire to ask questions of law related to their concern.  However, the bishop’s ruling that the resolution was out of order was a presider’s action, not a conference action.  As a presider’s action, it was considered “parliamentary” by the Council, something that should have been resolved at the conference level before being sent to the Council.  

To be a conference action, the questioners should have challenged the ruling of the bishop to the house (plenary session).  It is doubtful that a vote by the plenary that supported the bishop would have been sufficient grounds for the Council to be able to take jurisdiction and rule on the resolution.  Had the vote gone against the bishop’s ruling, that would have put the resolution before the body where either a positive or negative vote could have constituted a conference action and thus propelled questions of law about it into the wheelhouse of the Council.  

In any case, the effort to challenge the bishop’s ruling did not occur in this case so the Council had no hook to take jurisdiction.

Essentially the bishop’s ruling that at least a part of the original resolution was in violation of the Discipline stands because the resolution was not passed.  

Finally let me add that this bishop was probably advised incorrectly by some fellow bishops to refuse to acknowledge the questions of law because she had already ruled the resolutions out of order.  The rules of the Council require that the bishop report any questions of law raised, including those on matters the bishop felt were out of order.  The bishop, in that report to the Council, could then spell out why such questions were inappropriate.  Wisely, the bishop followed the Council’s rule on this and did not play power politics which those other bishops may have advised her to do.

JCD 1163

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1283&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189

The New York Conference faced dealing with a resolution about welcoming LGBT persons but which the bishop ruled out of order. Despite efforts to amend the resolution, the bishop persisted in ruling it out of order. Finally, the bishop asked for a motion to support his ruling, which the plenary did. The Council was left with a parliamentary situation that it has no jurisdiction to resolve.

It has to be frustrating to advocates for resolutions when they cannot overcome a parliamentary move which passes the house though the bishop had no real grounds.

Even though the resolution took up a large chunk of time in the Conference's agenda, by being voted as out of order, made all that work legally meaningless. The vote in support of the bishop meant it was not before the conference and hence, the Council had no jurisdiction.

This Council often provides enough history to understand the circumstances and their decision.

JCM 1176

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1296&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189

This kind of situation is so sad. A church is seen by the California-Nevada Conference (though it can happen anywhere) as no longer worthy of being open for whatever reason; it decides to close it without going through all the consulting or prior notice; and someone from the church tries to stop the process. Annual conferences end up facing situations where there is a lonely voice protesting a leadership position and wisely or unwisely makes the choice.

What makes this even sadder is that all the lone voice did was raise a parliamentary question and not a question of law. If he had asked instead, “Was the process of closing this church consistent with Paragraph(s) so-and-so of the Discipline?” the Council would probably have taken jurisdiction.

JCM 1180

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1300&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189

A district in the Northern Europe and Eurasia Central Conference has grown so much that it could be an annual conference of its own. But the Discipline is not exactly precise about how that can be brought about. This is a nice problem for the Council and they did a good job of sorting it all out. Only the General Conference can make it happen after the proper consultations show the requirements for formation of a provisional annual conference are met.

A member of the Council concurred dubitante. That means he went along with the decision but still has some doubts, probably not enough to identify them in a concurring or dissenting opinion.

Summary remarks for JCDs 1152-1181

The Council faced thirty-one docket items. Around half were memoranda, rulings that mainly included lack of jurisdiction, deferrals, and requests for reconsideration. But only a small handful showed no rationale. This Council has helped clarify church law, precedent, and their grounds for such rulings. By doing so, they perform an invaluable service to anyone trying to approach them with issues needing adjudication.

The other half also provided extensive analysis and careful interpretations which showed their thinking about how they reached their decisions.

The Council’s judicious use of concurring and dissenting opinions continues to be very informative and valuable for legal and historical reasons. This body of work, built on research, provides immense help to those who seek legal information to deal with complicated issues, from property insurance to forming provisional annual conferences.

The next step in the development of a mature canon of church law is the collation of the hard work showing up in the decisions of this Council. Indexes available from Associates in Advocacy and whatever is used by the Judicial Council already provide outlines for such a canon.

The Council is reaching its stride for the Church and deserves much credit for its effective service.

A large docket raised many issues. I identify six important ones.

1. JCD 1032 got a lot of attention with requests for reconsideration, with about a fourth of the items on the docket. The Council properly called upon the General Conference to resolve the issue but they, like the rest of the denomination, tend to see the problem as one of unwisely restricting pastoral authority and not of episcopal over-reach as I do (see my rationale under the comment on JCM 1160). Northern Illinois provided five docket items in their effort to overturn JCD 1032 and the Council began using “boiler plate” passages to simply say, “Work through General Conference, not us!”

2. I was deeply disappointed in the continuing pattern of the Council relying on their 1997 JCD 799 and failing to face up to violations of church law in personnel cases whenever an advocate used questions of law to appeal. Previous Council sessions have chosen to take jurisdiction in JCDs 1031 and 1135. If the Council accepted my arguments under JCM 1166 as well as what I’ve written in this blog about JCD 799 on January 11, 2011, and chosen to look into the things done by local church and conference leaders to the pastors seeking justice through the Council, in most of those cases, they would find as they did in JCD 1156, “Lack of diligence, integrity, care, or compassion in dealing with a case almost always results in irreparable harm to both the individual and the church. That has usually happened by the time a case of this nature gets to the Judicial Council.”

3. I was equally elated to see the Council’s JCD 1156 where a request for a declaratory decision was honored, and not summarily dismissed under JCD 1048. This Council can do exceptional analysis on many things as this set of decisions from November of 2010 shows. That excellence was applied to the personnel case brought in this docket item. The Council has just seen the tip of the iceberg of dirty tricks and machinations certain bishops and certain conferences have done to pastors.

4. I am glad for the flexibility that provides for Council action ad interim. But the trend so far, though small, is worrisome. Two decisions were handled outside the Council’s normal sessions at the request of two different sets of bishops. Is that showing some kind of privilege allowed to bishops?

(Ed. Note: I wish the Council had a way to handle personnel matters ad interim in order to sort out questions about abuse of fair process while it was happening rather than long after it happened. I think an annual conference judiciary team or maybe one on a jurisdictional level could handle such claims, especially in the administrative track.)

5. The number of Central Conference requests was unusually high. That appeals came from Africa and Eastern Europe is a sign of their growth. The Philippines has used the Council for a very long time.

(Ed. note: The Council’s four responses over the past year to one case may be giving them a better view of what is happening there. One clue is that for JCD 1152, the College of Bishops reported that the DSs went along with the change of site for an annual conference. In their report to the Council for JCM 1162, they admitted that the interim bishop appointed his own DSs to make that decision when the true DSs chose not to respond to the interim bishop. No matter which DSs were properly appointed, the College of Bishops was caught in a lie to the Council. I pray the Council will watch that situation carefully.)

6. Not having the actual questions of law nor other facts in front of me, I can only guess that JCM 1156, like JCM 1130, were seen by the Council as their best way to handle what may have been antagonistic questions meant to embarrass the respondents in those cases. My experience has been quite the opposite, that questions of law have been raised to help a respondent out of a bad situation. I can believe, as the concurring opinion in JCM 1130 states, that confidentiality was an important factor in the Council's decision. The problem remains though how to maintain it but not let a bishop off the hook for unfair decisions he or she made in a case.


7. Finally, I apologize to those seeking wisdom on financial and property matters for my not knowing enough to be sure my observations provide you with help on the decisions of interest to you. Your observations would be valuable. The material in this blog can be easily changed when the facts warrant it.

JCM 1143

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1263&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1181

The Council chose not to reconsider JCM 1125 where it has refused jurisdiction. A resolution at the Detroit Conference had not been voted onto the plenary agenda so it was not part of the business of the conference.

JCD 1120

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1237&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1181

The Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference faced a resolution that attempted to moderate the anti-homosexual language in the Discipline. During plenary, someone asked the bishop for a ruling of law about whether or not the resolution was out of order. The bishop took the time to go beyond that question to answer the rationale of the questioner. And the Council did likewise, rather than just responding as they should have that the Judicial Council does not deal with parliamentary questions.

It appears the Council chose to educate. They seemed to want to share the bishop’s arguments which they would not have had to if they had properly refused jurisdiction. After spending a lot of text on helpful historical understanding of various resolutions brought to them in the past, they told the bishop his decision was reversed.

On the one hand, they should have kept it simple by avoiding a parliamentary ruling. On the other, they provided a good summary of church law on resolutions.

JCD 1133

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1250&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1181

Western North Carolina Conference, in the midst of working through a motion related to housing policy for clergy couples, voted to ask the Judicial Council for amendments that would bring their motion into compliance with church law. While the Judicial Council properly took no jurisdiction, they were kind enough to remind those folks of previous decisions which indicated every pastor had the individual right to have housing as one of the parts of their support package.