CHAPTER XXVII.

MINISTERIAL COURT OF APPEALS.

1. Each Annual Conference shall elect every two years beginning with its first session after the General Conference, three Elders, who shall be men of experience, judgment and information touching the law of the Church, to be known as Triers of Appeals.

2. The Ministerial Court of Appeals shall consist of a President, who shall be a Bishop, and the Triers of Appeals from three Conferences adjacent to that of which the appellant was a member.

3. The President of the Ministerial Court shall be appointed by the House of Bishops; but in no case shall they appoint the Bishop who presided in the Annual Conference which tried the appellant.

4. Should any member of the Ministerial Court of Appeals, become an appellant to the Court of Appeals, he shall be disqualified to sit as a member of the said Court; his place declared vacant and another appointed in his stead.

5. Any member of any Annual Conference who has been tried and convicted shall have the right to appeal to the Ministerial Court; =provided=, he signifies to the Bishop of the Conference, his intention so to do within two months after the action of the Annual Conference.

6. The Secretary of the Annual Conference shall carefully preserve the record of the proceedings of the trial, all charges and specifications and documents relating thereto, and shall forward the same to the President of the Ministerial Court of Appeals as soon as he has been appointed.

7. The right of peremptory challenge shall not be denied an appellant, =provided=, the exercise of such challenge does not reduce the members of the Court below five, which number shall constitute a quorum.

8. The Ministerial Court of Appeals shall elect a Secretary from its own members to keep a record of its proceedings. In all cases the proceedings and findings of the Court shall be subject to review by the General Conference.

9. The appellant or his representative shall state the grounds of his appeal, and the representative of the lower court shall then be heard. The charges and specifications and all documents bearing on the case, together with the minutes of the lower Court, shall be read. The appellant is then heard in his defense and reply is made by the representative of the lower Court. When the representatives of the appellant and the Court below have been heard, they retire and the Court of Appeals deliberates and decides the case.