Ecclesiastical law

Lay rector - statutory liability for repairs to chancel - liability unenforcable for infringing European Convention for the Protection of Human RightsParochial Church Council of Aston Cantlow and Wilmcote with Billesley, Warwickshire v Wallbank and another: CA (Sir Andrew Morritt V-C, Lords Justice Robert Walker and Sedley):17 May 2001The defendants were the freehold owners of former glebe land and consequently, as lay impropriators, they were liable under the Chancel Repairs Act 1932 and the common law to repair the chancel of their local parish church.In September 1994 the parochial church council (PCC) served the defendants with a notice calling upon them to repair the chancel.

The defendants disputed their liability and the PCC commenced legal proceedings.

On the hearing of a preliminary issue the judge found the defendants liable for the cost of chancel repairs (see [2000] Gazette, 28 April, 32).

The defendants appealed on the ground that as the Human Rights Act 1998 was then in force the court had to consider whether the defendants' liability was incompatible with the European convention.Ian Partridge (instructed by Eddowes Perry & Osbourne, Sutton Coldfield) for the defendants.

Sarah Asplin (instructed by Rotherham & Co, Coventry) for the claimants.Held, allowing the appeal, that since the PCC was a 'public authority' within the meaning of section 6 of the 1998 Act, its acts had to be compatible with the rights set out in schedule 1; that the liability to defray the costs of chancel repairs was a form of tax which although in the public interest violated article 1 of the first protocol of the convention by operating entirely arbitrarily; that in breach of article 14 of the convention the liability discriminated against the defendants without a reasonable and objective justification; and, that accordingly the claimants could not enforce the defendant's liability.