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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 Office.

BILL NO 17

Explanatory Memorandum

The present regulations governing summoning of Boards of Nomination preclude a Board from meeting until such time as the cure concerned becomes vacant. They date from a period when voluntary retirement of clergy was unusual and compulsory retirement non-existent and when it was not uncommon for incumbents to remain in office until death. They also assume the ready availability of clergy, and relatively short vacancies.

In changed circumstances, where none of the above now apply and vacancies of long duration are common, it would seem desirable to enable the process of filling vacant incumbencies to begin at the earliest possible date. The Bill seeks to make provision for a Board of Nomination to meet in circumstances of a prospective vacancy, where, for instance, an Incumbent has indicated his or her intention to resign or retire on a particular date.

MR WF BAKER
VEN REB WHITE

Bill

To amend Chapter IV of the Constitution

WHEREAS it is expedient that a Board of Nomination should be entitled to meet before a vacancy in a cure has actually occurred;

AND WHEREAS for that purpose it is necessary to amend Chapter IV of the Constitution;

BE IT ENACTED by the Archbishops, Bishops and the Clergy and Laity of the Church of Ireland in General Synod assembled in Dublin in the year 2003, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

1. In Chapter IV of the Constitution (hereinafter referred to as ‘the said Chapter’) immediately after the words ‘APPOINTMENT TO AND TENURE OF CURES’ there shall be inserted the following:
   
   “Preliminary
   In Parts I, II and III the terms ‘vacant cure’, ‘vacant benefice’, ‘vacancy in a cure of souls’ and ‘a cure becoming vacant’ shall include a cure where the vacancy is prospective and, as far as can reasonably be ascertained, definite.”
    
2. For Section 15 of the said Chapter there shall be substituted:
   
   “15. Subject to the provisions of Sections 13 and 14 of this Chapter, the Board of Nomination for a vacant cure shall be summoned by the Bishop, or the Bishop’s Commissary, to meet on a date which is not earlier than three months before the date on which the cure will, as far as can reasonably be ascertained, become vacant and which is not later than two months after the date of receipt by the Bishop or the Bishop’s Commissary of the report required by Section 13 of this Chapter.”

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