In Presbyterian government, there are two possible subsets
of the particular court of the church (session, presbytery, General Assembly).
The first is a committee. The committee can “examine, consider, and report” to
the court on any issue assigned to it. But the committee cannot make any
judgment on the matter. That judgment is left to the court. The second subset
is a commission. “A commission is authorized to deliberate upon and conclude
the business referred to it” (BCO 15-1). In other words, the commission
acts in place of the court. The one exception to this rule is the judicial
commission. A judicial commission can be assigned a case (if the court doesn't
want to deal with it directly). When the judicial commission completes its
work, it submits its record of the case and its judgment to the court. At this
point, the court can either approve or disapprove the judgment of the
commission.
In the overture from PNWP, they propose a third option,
which would allow the commission the final say. The presbytery would assign the
case to the commission with the understanding that the judgment of the case
rendered by the commission will be the judgment of the presbytery. So in
judicial cases, there would be three options: 1) the presbytery could try the
case with the presbytery as a whole; 2) the presbytery could assign the case to
a commission, with presbytery rendering the final approval on the judgment; or
3) the presbytery could allow the commission the final say from the beginning,
without any final approval by the presbytery as a whole.
The rationale for this third option is that the presbytery
as a whole might not have sufficient knowledge of the case to vote
intelligently in approving or disapproving the judgment of the commission. It
would also provide for a quicker decision on the case, since the judgment would
not have to wait until the next meeting of presbytery to go into effect.
This revision of the BCO was first proposed by
another presbytery last year, but it was sent back for further perfection.
There is admittedly a certain attractiveness to the overture, particularly in
the desire to streamline the process. It also recognizes that the presbytery
often votes to approve the judgment of the commission on the basis of the
presbytery simply trusting that the commission did its work properly.
However, this strikes me as being essentially the same
rationale that provided the PCA with its current Standing Judicial Commission
of the General Assembly. While that seemed good at the time, there has
developed a great deal of discomfort with the way it has worked out in the long
run. As a result, my own sense is that such a change is unnecessary. Rather,
there ought simply to be an understanding that the requirements that the BCO
already puts upon a judicial commission should always be followed. As the BCO
currently reads, “a commission shall keep a full record of its
proceedings, which shall be submitted to the court appointing it” (emphasis
added). That record should then be made available to the presbytery as a whole
in a timely manner, so that presbyters have sufficient time to review the
record of the case. That way, the presbytery will be able to vote
approve/disapprove in an intelligent fashion.
2 comments:
CCB stated concerning Overture 1: "In the opinion of the CCB, Overture 1 may be in conflict with other parts of the Constitution. The proposed 15.3.b.2, as written, is ambiguous as to when the sixty (60) day window for filing written notice of a complaint begins (BCO 43-2). Additionally, it is unclear under the provisions of BCO 43-1 who would have the right to file a complaint."
Thanks for the clarification, Andrew.
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