Ian Smith reports on the secular, spiritual & circular nature of employment law
We have been graced this last month with two decisions by the Supreme Court on employment matters. Both concerned relatively esoteric areas of the law, but ones in which decisions at the highest level are welcome.
Church matters
Employment law sometimes seems to develop in large, lazy circles. The direction of that development in relation to the legal status of religious ministers has in recent years been towards the extension of employment status, in spite of a couple of older authorities pointing away from such status which looked increasingly anomalous (though not actually reversed). The decision of the Supreme Court (by a 4-1 majority) in President of the Methodist Conference v Preston [2013] UKSC 29 has now reversed that direction and taken us back to what originally appeared to be the case, namely that: (i) there is no rule against employment status for a minister; (ii) there is no presumption against it; but (iii) likewise it is impossible to generalise and it will all depend on the facts and arrangements
