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The following draft Bill will be debated during this years General Synod. For further information on amendments and passage through General Synod please contact the General Synod Press Officer.

BILL NO 10

Explanatory Memorandum

The General Synod in 2001 authorised the Legislation Committee to prepare a Bill to consolidate enactments of the General Synod concerning the Constitution of the Church of Ireland so replacing the Statute of 1988. It is proposed to introduce such a Bill in the General Synod of 2003. Since a Consolidation Bill cannot include amendments of substance any such amendments to the Constitution, if they are to be included in the Consolidation Statute, must be made in separate legislation in advance of the Consolidation Bill.

Several such amendments have been brought to the attention of the Legislation Committee and accordingly the purpose of this Bill is to seek to make the said amendments in advance of next year's Consolidation Bill.

Both the Standing Committee of the General Synod and the Representative Church Body consider that the time is now right to reduce by three years the minimum age limit for lay members of the General Synod and of the Representative Church Body. Accordingly clauses 3 and 6 of this Bill would so reduce by three years that age limit. It should be noted that under section 7 of Chapter I of the Constitution the age limit for qualification for election is the age of the person on 1st January preceding his or her election to the General Synod for a period of three years commencing on the following 1st January. Accordingly, while the word "seventeen" would replace the word "twenty" in practice, laypersons so elected would have attained the age of eighteen by the time they first sat as lay members of the General Synod. Similarly most lay members of the Representative Church Body would be eighteen years of age or older before they sat as lay members of the Representative Body.

Clause 2 seeks to clarify the maximum age limit for clerical membership of the General Synod; at present an anomaly has arisen with auxiliary ministers and clergy who are not members of the Church of Ireland Clergy Pensions Fund and consequently are not precluded from membership by being in receipt of a clergy pension. Clause 2 would apply a maximum age limit for clerical membership of the General Synod similar to that applicable to lay membership of the Synod.

Clause 5(1) of the Bill would reduce the period of office for election to membership of diocesan courts from five to three years in line with the triennial period for membership of the General Synod; in clause 5(2) the position of existing members of diocesan courts is protected to avoid premature termination of the period of office for which they have already been elected.

Clause 4 seeks to specify the Liturgical Advisory Committee in section 26(3) of Chapter I of the Constitution giving formal recognition to the practice followed and clause 1 is purely interpretative.

LADY SHEIL
REV CANON RD HARMAN

Bill

To amend Chapters I, VIII and X of the Constitution.

WHEREAS it is desirable to reduce the minimum age limit for eligibility for election of laypersons to be members of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland and of the Representative Body, to clarify the maximum age limit for clerical membership thereof, to make new provision for election to membership of Diocesan Courts and to make sundry other amendments relating to election to membership of the General Synod and committees thereof;

AND WHEREAS for such purposes it is necessary to amend Chapters I, VIII and X of the Constitution;

BE IT ENACTED by the Archbishops and Bishops and the Clergy and Laity of the Church of Ireland in General Synod assembled in Dublin in the year 2002, and by the authority of the same as follows:

1. In this Statute Chapters I, VIII and X mean Chapters I, VIII and X of Constitution of the Church of Ireland, 1988.
2. In section 6 of Chapter I after the words "under the provisions of Chapter XIV" there shall be inserted "and on 1st January preceding election had not attained the age of seventy-four years".
3. In sections 7 and 9 of Chapter I for the word "twenty" wherever it occurs there shall be substituted the word "seventeen".
4. In section 26(3) of Chapter I for the words "a Liturgical Committee appointed by the General Synod" there shall be substituted the words "the Liturgical Advisory Committee of the General Synod".
5. (1) Without prejudice to the provisions of subsection (2), in section 7 of Chapter VIII for the words "hold office for five years" there shall be substituted the words "be elected to hold office from 1st January of the first year of the General Synod triennium for three years and be elected triennially thereafter".
   (2) Members of the Diocesan Court in office on 14th May 2002 shall be entitled to continue in office until the expiry of the General Synod triennium during which their term of office would otherwise have expired.
6. In section 5(2) of Chapter X for the word "twenty" there shall be substituted the word "seventeen".

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