Ecclesiastical

Faculty to exhume remains - delay in bringing petition - reinterment in unconsecrated ground - freedom of religion - faculty grantedRe Durrington Cemetery: Consistory Court of the Diocese of Chichester (Mark Hill, Chancellor): 5 June 2000

The deceased, who was Jewish, died in 1981 and was buried, at his wife's request, in ground consecrated by the Church of England.

When the deceased's wife decided to emigrate to Australia, his relatives wished to have the body reinterred in a Jewish cemetery.

The petitioners applied to the consistory court for a faculty giving them permission to have the body exhumed.Held, that the petitioners had shown good reason for the delay in bringing the petition; that there was a sufficient degree of similarity in teaching on burial between the Christian and Jewish faiths so that the fact that the Jewish cemetery was not consecrated ground was not relevant; and that the consistory court would have been bound to respect the deceased's family's right to manifest their religion in practice and observance by securing the reinterment of the deceased in a Jewish cemetery had the Human Rights Act 1998 been in force.