Judicial Council’s Spring Meeting Cancellation Raises Questions

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A United Methodist Insight Interpretive

Update Jan. 23, 2018: Sharon Dean, communications director for the General Council on Finance and Administration, said meetings and bookings staff had completed its cost calculations after being unable to get into the Nashville office because of adverse weather that shut down major highways. "The average cost of a Judicial Council meeting is approximately $39,000 for the 9 members to attend, four of whom travel from outside the US to be here for their role on the Council," Ms. Dean wrote in an email. 

See update below, Jan. 20, 2018

A rare meeting cancellation by the United Methodist Judicial Council has raised questions among rank-and-file United Methodists about the cancellation and two items the council says it will defer until fall.

The Jan. 16 Daily Digest distributed by United Methodist News Service included the following report:

“Judicial Council Cancels Spring Meeting

“CHICAGO — The executive committee of the United Methodist Judicial Council has canceled the council’s April meeting in Atlanta. To be good stewards of church funds, the council will defer the two docket items that had been submitted for April to its October meeting, said the Rev. Luan-Vu ‘Lui’ Tran, council secretary.”

Canceling a meeting of the Judicial Council, the “high court” of The United Methodist Church, is an extremely rare event – so rare that the announcement caused a flurry of questions on social media. The United Methodist Church’s web page about the Council describes the body this way:

“The Judicial Council is the highest judicial body or ‘court’ of The United Methodist Church. Its nine members are elected by the General Conference. The Judicial Council determines the constitutionality of acts or proposed acts of the General, Jurisdictional, Central, and Annual Conferences. It acts on these either on appeal of lower rulings or through requests for declaratory decisions. It also rules on whether acts of other official bodies of the denomination conform to The Book of Discipline. This is done in accordance with procedures established in The Book of Discipline.”

A thread on Facebook posed several questions about the cancellation’s precedent, the issues involved with the two deferred items, and the workings of the Judicial Council itself, which typically meets behind closed doors except for public hearings for oral arguments.

According to a Facebook post from retired Bishop Max Whitefield, there appears to be distant precedent for cancelling a Judicial Council meeting. The bishop posted that according to Judicial Council dockets and decisions he researched, the last time the UMC’s “high court” showed no decisions was Spring 1985. Since the Judicial Council must report on the disposition of all items before it, it would be reasonable to conclude there was no meeting in Spring 1985.

UPDATE: After this original story was published, Sally Curtis AsKew, a retired member of the Judicial Council, wrote in to say there is another, more recent precedent for the Council canceling a meeting: 

"There is precedent for cancelling a meeting of the Judicial Council when there were two items on the docket," Mrs. AsKew wrote. "It happened in the Spring of 1990 when I was a member of the Council.  It was determined that neither item would cause harm if postponed until October of 1990. I was a member of the Council at that time.  

"At the time I was very happy to have the meeting cancelled as I was working full time and completing my master's in Library and Information Science." 

Some social media posts speculated that the meeting was cancelled because "we're all holding our breath" awaiting decisions about church unity and human sexuality from the special called General Conference slated Feb. 23-26, 2019 in St. Louis. Others wondered whether the two deferred items concerned issues related to those topics. United Methodist Insight emailed the Judicial Council secretary, the Rev. Luan-Vu “Lui” Tran, requesting more details on the two deferred items. The following reply was received.

“Thank you for your inquiry regarding the docket items deferred to the October session of the Judicial Council.

“Article V.B. of the Rules of Practice and Procedures provides:

“’The Secretary shall assure that the docket is posted on the Judicial Council pages of the official United Methodist website at least ninety (90) days before the session at which the case will be considered. The posting shall include the complete wording of the request for a decision (¶ 2608.1 of The Discipline.’”

“The docket for the October session has not been set yet. It will be published sometime after the July 15 deadline for submission of matters for inclusion in the October Docket.

“Thank you for your understanding and patience.”

Dr. Tran’s email refers to the Rules of Practice and Procedures of the Judicial Council. As a body created by the United Methodist Constitution, the Council has the authority to set its own rules.

Since Dr. Tran’s reply didn’t answer Insight’s original question, a second email was sent repeating the question. The second email was addressed to the Judicial Council Executive Committee that decided to cancel the Spring meeting: Dr. Tran, President N. Oswald Tweh, and Vice President Ruben Reyes. The committee was asked to reply by 3 p.m. CST Jan. 17. An answer to the second email had not been received by the deadline. (This article will be updated if an answer arrives after publication).

Regarding the rationale of stewarding the church’s money by cancelling a meeting, the 2017-2020 Financial Commitment booklet prepared by the General Council on Finance and Administration shows $583,009 allotted for the Judicial Council in the General Administration Fund. General Administration is one of the seven “apportioned” funds paid by the fair-share contributions assessed annually against each United Methodist congregation.

According to communications director Sharon Dean, GCFA's office of meetings and bookings handles arrangements for Judicial Council meetings. Because of adverse weather in Nashville Jan. 15-17, GCFA staff were unable to get into their office to obtain the per-meeting cost by Insight’s deadline. Ms. Dean said GCFA will provide the information as soon as possible. Typically, the denomination pays for the members’ hotel accommodations, meals, and travel, and expenses related to the meeting, such as room and equipment rental.

Money aside, deferral of two items to a later docket could also reflect the strict constructionist approach of the current Judicial Council regarding its authority to decide some issues. Two decisions from the October 2017 Digest show examples of this pattern (bold type added).

“MEMORANDUM NO. 1356

“IN RE: Review of a Bishop’s Decision of Law in the South Carolina Annual Conference concerning if Decision 1340 of the Judicial Council or some part of the Book of Discipline 2016 render it out of order for an annual conference to petition the General Conference for enabling legislation to allow the Annual Conference to alter its relationship with the General Conference.

“The Judicial Council has no jurisdiction. The request for a Bishop’s decision of law arose out of a parliamentary ruling that the resolution or petition was out of order. We have no jurisdiction to review a parliamentary determination by a bishop.

“In Judicial Council Decision 1117, the Judicial Council stated: ‘There is no disciplinary authority for the Judicial Council to assume jurisdiction of a parliamentary ruling by a presiding bishop.’ The Judicial Council has no jurisdiction to review this matter. See also JCD 834, 941, 943, and 1163.”

“MEMORANDUM NO. 1348

“IN RE: Petition for Declaratory Decision from the Alaska Conference regarding the constitutionality of the relevant portion of ¶ 2008 of The Book of Discipline 2016.

“DIGEST

“The Judicial Council does not have jurisdiction since the matter does not involve annual conferences or the work therein. ¶ 2610.2(j). There is no showing in the record that the question was germane to the work of the Alaska Conference. Our longstanding jurisprudence has interpreted ¶ 2610.2(j) to mean that a request that comes from an annual conference must be germane to the regular business, consideration, or discussion of the annual conference and must have a direct and tangible effect on the work of the annual conference session. See Memorandum 1277.”

Paragraph 2610.2 to which the second decision refers lists those with standing to bring constitutional questions to the Judicial Council. The paragraph reads:

“The following bodies in The United Methodist Church are hereby authorized to make such petitions to the Judicial Council for declaratory decisions: (a) the General Conference; (b) the Council of Bishops; (c) any body created or authorized by the General Conference on matters relating to or affecting the work of such body; (d) a majority of the bishops assigned to any jurisdiction on matters relating to or affecting jurisdictions or the work therein; (e) a majority of the bishops assigned to any central conference on matters relating to or affecting the central conferences or the work therein; (f) any jurisdictional conference on matters relating to or affecting jurisdictions or jurisdictional conferences or the work herein; (g) any body created or authorized by the jurisdictional conference on matters relating to or affecting the work of such body; (h) any central conference on matters relating to or affecting central conference or the work therein; (i) any body authorized or created by a central conference on matters relating to or affecting the work of such body; and (j) any annual conference on matters relating to annual conferences or the work therein.”

The key phrase upon which the Judicial Council appears to rely is its definition of “the work” done by a church body. In 2017, the Judicial Council refused to rule on two petitions for declaratory decisions from the Denmark and California-Pacific annual conferences regarding the constitutionality of United Methodist anti-LGBTQ policies. In both cases, the Judicial Council ruled that it had no authority to make declaratory judgments on the petitions because they didn’t pertain to “the work of the annual conference.” Based on these decisions, it appears that the Judicial Council defines only those actions taken during annual conference sessions as “the work,” and not the administration that takes place between sessions.

This interpretation leaves annual conferences, which are the basic unit of The United Methodist Church, without judicial recourse to clarify the constitutionality of Discipline regulations that they are required to administer. The only course left for such determinations is to bring legislation to the General Conference, where delegates’ polarization has often prevented changes.

Current members of the Judicial Council and their locations are:

The Rev. Dennis J. Blackwell, Woodlynne, New Jersey

Beth Capen, New York

Lidia Gulele, Massinga, Mozambique

The Rev. Øyvind Helliesen, Fredrikstad, Norway

The Rev. J. Kibamba Kiboko, Cincinnati, Ohio

Ruben T. Reyes, Manila, Philippines, vice president

Deanell Reece Tacha, Lawrence, Kansas

The Rev. Luan-Vu “Lui” Tran, Granada Hills, California, secretary

N. Oswald Tweh, Monrovia, Liberia, president

The Rev. Tim Bruster, clergy alternate, Fort Worth, Texas

Warren Plowden, first lay alternate, Macon, Georgia

Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011