Standing Judicial Commission Rules Against Northwest Georgia Presbytery and Midway Session Declaring Long-Held Practice of “Vetting” Unconstitutional

How many men over the years have been affected by this unconstitutional process?

The Standing Judicial Commission has declared the officer election procedures at Midway unconstitutional.

Over the last fifteen years, the Midway Session had thrown out many nominations, before training or examination. As they stated in their brief to the NWGP: “The actions taken by Respondent [Midway Session — Editor] were pursuant to long-standing procedures followed by Respondent for many previous election cycles and were pursuant to the process formally adopted for this election cycle and published to the congregation.”

In additional to declaring the practice unconstitutional, the SJC stated in their judgment “fairness and equity suggest a Session should communicate the rationale for its action to remove a man from further consideration promptly and directly to the man”.  

In the Session’s case, it did not interview or discuss with the candidate their reasons for acting as they did.

Download the full SJC judgment (SJC case 2019-03) here: