Rights for ministers

A Methodist minister is an employee of the church, the Court of Appeal has held in President of the Methodist Conference v Preston [2011] EWCA Civ 1581.

Haley Moore, who was ordained as a Methodist minister in 2003 and resigned in 2009, sought to claim constructive unfair dismissal. However, an earlier Court of Appeal case involving a minister held that the “spiritual nature of the relationship” and the “spiritual discipline” that the church was able to exercise over the minister meant the relationship was “non-contractual” (President of the Methodist Conference v Parfitt [1984] QB 368). The minister was “called by God, a servant of God”, and that was “the central relationship”.

When Moore sought redress, the employment tribunal considered itself bound by Parfitt and dismissed her claim.

She successfully appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), which found the tribunal was wrong to follow Parfitt in light of a later House of Lords’ decision that impliedly overruled Parfitt, Percy v Board of National Mission of the Church of Scotland [2005] UKHL 73.

Mr Justice Underhill, in the EAT, said: “We do not believe that the reasoning of Parfitt can be sustained in the light of Percy, even on the same facts.”

The Court of Appeal agreed with this reasoning, which Lord Justice Maurice Kay said contained “a masterly and detailed analysis of the authorities”. It noted that Percy is an example of the courts updating the common law and making it relevant to modern times.

Kay LJ said that, whatever the stance of the church, “it surely does not embrace a doctrinal belief that a minister who is treated with unfairness or discrimination must be denied common legal redress”.