ABSTRACT
At the heart of the debate about whether there can be a recognisable dispensing power in the law governing the Church of England is a question about the canonical jurisprudence of the Church of England. The definition that is common to dispensation and economy, as outlined in the opening chapter, is that both are mechanisms whereby an action which would (other than for the dispensation or economy granted) be illegal or impossible, is made possible and legal. The second, and very important, principle behind both concepts is that, despite this setting aside of the law in the particular case, the law remains unchanged in other cases and a precedent is not necessarily set for future similar cases. This contrasts, for example, with equity as it has developed in the UK and in similar jurisdictions, in that precedent is an important part of the application of equity and that equitable rights and responsibilities can become fixed by precedent.
