CLERGY sacked by the Church of England will soon be able to sue for unfair dismissal under a proposed change in the law published today.

The Church is planning to give proper employment rights to at least 3,500 clergy who do not enjoy the protection of freehold, in effect a job for life, and are merely licensed by diocesan bishops.

Despite getting a regular wage or stipend, a good pension and swearing an oath of obedience to their bishop, they have no contract of employment. This means that they can be summarily dismissed at almost any time, losing home and stipend simultaneously.

The law designates them “office-holders” rather than “employees” of the Church, meaning that when dismissed they have no protection under employment law and are unable to seek redress at an employment tribunal.

Most clergy do not wish to become employees, according to one recent survey. Clergymen and women felt that it could reduce the sense of independence of conscience, and that the secular concept of employee did not fit easily with the religious position of an office-holder. However, most do want greater legal protection from unfair dismissal and better definition of their rights and duties in their posts.

Church leaders and officials believe that it is time to give them the job protection rights enjoyed by employees where they do not have the protection of the freehold. This would be done by creating a new status of office-holding, described as “common tenure”. These posts would be open-ended until retirement age, but a dismissal procedure could be invoked where the priest was failing to reach the required minimum standards, or on grounds such as discipline and redundancy.

At present 5,500 clergy including bishops, deans and archdeacons enjoy the protection of the freehold, which means that they can remain in a single post without fear of dismissal until retiring at 70.

The rise in licensed, as opposed to freehold, clergy coincided with financial crises of the Church and the dwind-ling number of full-time stipendiary priests. Forcing clergy to operate on licences without the freehold gives bishops flexibility when reorganising parishes, cutting clergy numbers and ousting misfits.

The change is proposed in a review chaired by David McClean, Professor of Law at Sheffield University and a leading lay member of the General Synod. In his report, Review of Clergy Terms of Service, to be debated by the synod next month, he recommends greater job security for clergy without the freehold and a new package of rights and responsibilities.

Professor McClean’s review group was set up after the Government asked in 2002 for comment on plans to confer employment rights on “atypical” workers, people such as ministers, homeworkers and agency workers, who do a job, but are not technically employees. The Archbishops’ Council agreed at the time that “for some clergy, the present arrangements do not provide sufficient safeguard against injustice”.

The aim now is to confer upon clergy the employment rights set out in the Employment Relations Act, 1999, except where the rights are not applicable, such as the right not to work on Sunday. Giving them access to employment tribunals would not require them to have contracts of employment, the report says.

Lord Justice Mummery ruled in 1997 that a clergyman or woman has “no terrestrial employer in the performance of his duties”. No contract of employment could, therefore, be held to exist.

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