CLERGYMEN and women will be able to take their employers to court after a ruling yesterday that, under employment law, they can claim unfair dismissal.

Until the decision by an Employment Appeal Tribunal, sacked clergy had no legal redress: they were considered to be office holders answerable only to God rather than any terrestrial authority.

The tribunal upheld an earlier ruling that a relationship betweeen a church and a pastor had the characteristic of a contract of service.

The Rev Sylvester Stewart had brought the case after being removed as pastor of the New Testament of God Church, in Harrow, northwest London, over allegations of financial impropriety.

Mr Stewart, who denied the allegations, claimed unfair dismissal, but the Church opposed his claim on the ground that he was not an employee and, therefore, could not bring a claim.

The appeal tribunal said that “if the relationship between church and minister has many of the characteristics of a contract of employment . . . these cannot be ignored simply because the duties are of a religious or pastoral nature”.

Mr Stewart’s claim of unfair dismissal will now go to an employment tribunal.

Daniel Barnett, the barrister who represented Mr Stewart, said: “The Government has been considering granting employment law rights to ministers for several years. The courts have given up waiting.

“Ministers tend to religious needs on behalf of a church, just as medical staff tend to physical needs on behalf of an NHS trust, but nobody would suggest that medical staff should be denied employment rights.”

Under the 1999 Employment Relations Act, office holders in faith organisations or ministers of religion were excluded from employment laws.

Amicus, the union that represents clergy and other church workers, has been considering their plight for some time and welcomed the ruling.

A survey last year found that almost a third of the clergy thought that their jobs were under threat, and more than four-fifths knew of a colleague who had been “treated unacceptably”.

Rachael Maskell, Amicus’s national officer, said yesterday: “The courts have recognised Amicus’s position that the time has come for ministers of religion to be treated with the same human and employment rights as all other workers, so no longer can they be removed from office for no unjustifiable reason, and have nowhere to go to appeal against such injustices.”

The Church of England said: “The Church of England believes it is right that its clergy should have access to employment tribunals. We have twice recommended that this should be allowed.”

The Roman Catholic Church failed to reply when asked its position. One source said that the difficulty facing the Church was that all authority came from Rome.

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