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Equity and Trusts - Charitable and Non-Charitable Trusts Disposition

Hi, I'm not looking for an answer just a bit of direction for the following disposition:

'shares to be used to maintain the political independence of the magazine and promote literary standards'.

Just wondering what kinda direction I'd go in especially as regards the 'political independence' part. Thanks
Reply 1
No one?
Reply 2
McGovern v. AttGen [1981]3 All ER 493
The issue of political activities by charities has been a matter of concern of late, with organisations such as Oxfam being censured. The line between seeking to treat society’s ills and seeking to cure them through legislation is a difficult one to draw, but the Charity Commission has indicated that charities who indulge in political activity which is more than merely ancillary to their main purposes risk loss of charitable status. It is also clear that political activity includes activity in relation to foreign governments, as in the case of Amnesty International, which seeks to influence foreign government policy: for example, by seeking the release of political prisoners and banning torture. It was held in this case, not to be charitable.

Human DignityTrust v. Charity Commission for England and Wales CA/2013/0013 First-Tier Tribunal (Charity), 6th June 2014. The First-Tier Tribunal (Charity) has given judgment in favour of the Human Dignity Trust("HDT" in this case concerning the charitable purpose of advancing human rights. HDT was established to support people whose human rights are violated by the criminalisation of private, adult, consensual homosexual conduct ('relevant conduct' including by assisting them and their lawyers to bring and defend legal cases (a) in domestic courts and tribunals of a state,in relation to rights justiciable under the domestic law of that state and/or(b) against a state before international courts and tribunals, the jurisdiction of which has been accepted by the state against which a remedy is sought. The Charity Commission had refused to register HDT as a charity on the ground,inter alia, that its purposes were 'political' (within the doctrine in McGovernv. AG) in that, in the Commission's view, HDT sought to change the lawof foreign states having laws purporting to criminalise relevant conduct. The First-Tier Tribunal has allowed HDT's appeal against this decision, holding that:- HDT was concerned with the promotion of human rights by establishing whether particular laws were valid through a process of constitutional interpretation -this process fell entirely outside the categories of activity held to bepolitical (and thus not charitable) in McGovern;
- Those categories should not be extended to include it, because a process ofconstitutional litigation did not offend the separation of powers in aconstitutional (as opposed to Parliamentary) democracy;
- HDT was engaged in upholding the law, not changing it; and
- HDT's purposes were for the public benefit, because the purported criminalisation of relevant conduct represented a serious breach of international human rights norms. There was a public benefit in seeking to interpret, clarify and protect superior constitutional rights.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 3
You can use the following structure [to be considered charitable, each of the dispositions]:
(1) must promote a charitable purpose (The Charities Act 2011, s. 2(1)(a))
(2) which satisfies the public benefit requirement (s. 2(1)(b); for the definition of public benefit requirement, see s. 4)
(3) and that purpose must be exclusively charitable (s. 1(1)(a)).
Reply 5


Thanks, that is a big help. Much appreciated. Any idea about the promoting literary standards part of the disposition.
Reply 6
Could be classified as advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science (Charities Act 2011, s. 3(1)(f))? Or education (s. 3(1)(b)) or even community development (s. 3(1)(e)). If it doesn't not fit into any of the section, you can also apply s. 3(1)(m), as long as it satisfies the criteria.

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