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Ecclesiastical Case Reports
Re Blagdon Cemetery
(Court of Arches: The Dean of Arches, Clark and George Chs, April 2002)
Exhumation - presumption against - exceptionality
The court allowed the appellants' appeal against the decision of Briden Ch, sitting in the Bath and Wells Consistory Court, refusing a faculty for the exhumation of their son who had died in 1978 aged 21 years. The appellants had not established a permanent home until shortly before they petitioned the chancellor and they sought the exhumation in order that their son could be reburied in a plot reserved also for themselves. Having considered a paper on the theology of burial requested by the court from the Rt Revd Christopher Hill, the court affirmed the principle that there is a presumption against exhumation and that only exceptional cases would warrant the grant of a faculty. The court made certain observations of wider application:
(i) Medical reasons relied upon by a petitioner would have to be very powerful indeed to create an exception to the norm of permanence, for example, serious psychiatric or psychological problems where medical evidence demonstrates a link between that medical condition and the question of the location of the grave;
(ii) The lapse of time will not in itself be determinative of the petition. The existence of a credible explanation for the delay is relevant;
(iii) A mistake as to the location of a grave can be a ground for the granting of a faculty for an exhumation;
(iv) A change of mind as to the location of the grave should not be a ground for the granting of a faculty for an exhumation;
(v) The views of close relatives of the deceased are very significant;
(vi) The support of the wider community, including the incumbent, the PCC and parishioners will normally be irrelevant;
(vii) It was appropriate for a chancellor to have regard to the effect of setting a precedent when determining such petitions;
(viii) Family graves are to be encouraged as an expression of family unity and as an economical use of land for burials.
In granting the appeal, the court identified the following as special factors:
(i) The sudden and unnatural death of the appellants' son at an age when he had expressed no view about where he would like to be buried;
(ii) The absence of any link between the appellants' son and the community in which he was buried;
(iii) The appellants' lack of a permanent home at the time of their son's burial;
(iv) The fact that the appellants had made enquiries shortly after their son's death about the possibility of future exhumation when they had acquired a permanent home;
(v) The appellants' purchase of a triple depth burial plot in the community of which they were now settled and permanent members.
Note: In reaching its decision the court differed from the reasoning of the Chancery Court of York in Re Christ Church, Alsager [1999] Fam 142, [1999] 1 All ER 117. The consequence of having conflicting precedents in the Northern and Southern Provinces will need to be worked out over time. It is discussed in the editorial.
[RA]
 The full transcript of the judgment can be viewed here
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