Court of Peculiars

The Court of Peculiars is one of the ecclesiastical courts of the Church of England. The court sits with a Dean, who is also the Dean of the Arches. The Registrars are the Joint Provincial Registrars. The Court of Peculiars deals with all legal matters from peculiar parishes^[a] in the province. Until 1545, ecclesiastical judges were required to have a degree in canon law; thereafter, they only needed a doctorate in civil law. Binding precedent was only introduced into the ecclesiastical courts in the nineteenth century.

List of deans of the court

Sir Philip Wilbraham-Baker, c. 1938–1955
Sir Henry Willink, 1955–1970
Walter Wigglesworth, 1971–1972
Sir Harold Kent, 1972–1976
Kenneth Elphinstone, 1977–1980
Sir John Owen, 1980–2000
Sheila Cameron, 2000–2009
Charles George, 2009–

Notes

^ A peculiar parish is a parish outside the jurisdiction of the diocese in which it is located, see royal peculiar.^[1]

References

^ Barber, Paul (Winter 1995). "What Is a Peculiar?". Ecclesiastical Law Journal. 3 (16): 299–312. doi:10.1017/S0956618X00002210. ISSN 1751-8539.

Cox, Noel (2001). "Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Church of the Province of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia". Deakin Law Review. 6 (2): 266–284.