The Charity Commission doesn't know what charity is
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Version 0 of 1. Does the Charity Commission have any idea of the meaning of charity? Not if you read its decision on the Human Dignity Trust, which fights in the courts to end discrimination against homosexuals in other countries. This could not possibly be for the public benefit, the commission has ruled, because changing these laws is contrary to public policy and could prejudice our relations with states that put gay men in jail. For these reasons, the commission has denied the Human Dignity Trust registration as a charity, a decision that will be challenged in court today. Charities law has been asinine ever since 1601 when it began in a statute that is still followed today. Charitable status is much in demand by tax avoiders, and also by Scientologists (who, as a religion, qualify for it). Back in 1981, a judge in Chancery solemnly decided that Amnesty International could not be registered (unlike, say, a home for distressed gentlefolk), because the advancement of human rights was a "political" purpose, and so not charitable. This was a nonsensical result: human rights are universal and independent of politics, as Theresa May knows to her cost. It is an inane decision that should not be followed. Firstly, because the Human Rights Act passed in 1998 imposes a duty on all courts to act compatibly with the European convention, which condemns the very kind of inhumane treatment the Human Dignity Trust tries to stop. Secondly, because parliament, aware of the absurdity of denying charitable status to organisations such as Amnesty, expressly made "the advancement of human rights" a charitable purpose under the 2006 Charities Act, so long as the charities' work is "for the public benefit". The Charity Commission, impervious to law reform and common sense, has decided it is not. It has produced a decision so backward looking that it puts at risk the charitable status of any organisation concerned to use the law to assist progressive social programmes – for example, to protect victims of slavery or child abuse or sex-trafficking – by making legal challenges in foreign courts. "Changes to the law or government decisions", the commission says, "cannot necessarily be seen as beneficial and therefore as meeting the public benefit requirement". More than 80 nations make homosexuality a crime, most of them Commonwealth countries that have inherited our colonial laws against "the abominable crime of buggery". The Human Dignity Trust is challenging them as inconsistent with the constitutions of these countries, a strategy that offers some hope of striking them down. But this is precisely what the commission objects to, because it can see absolutely no public benefit in decriminalising homosexuality. It even quotes with approval a passage in the 1981 Amnesty case, which said it would not be for the public benefit to have a trust whose object was to secure the abolition of stoning women to death for adultery. The commission decision is a truly dreadful piece of work: poorly written, incoherent in places, and with no understanding at all of human rights. It begins by questioning whether there can ever be a right to dignity – unaware of the fact that this is the very first right in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. The commission complains: "It is not entirely clear whether the promotion of the right to human dignity falls within the scope of the advancement of human rights" – a statement that could only be made by people utterly ignorant of the subject. The commission also seems to have no conception of such basic legal concepts as the separation of powers. It notes that parliament has legislated "the advancement of human rights" as a charitable purpose, but then decides that any advocacy for changing the law (which is how human rights advance) is of questionable public benefit, and therefore cannot be charitable. By this catch-22, the will of parliament has been thwarted. The result is that, unless this decision is overturned, any organisation with a human rights agenda is now likely to lose its charitable status "if its purpose … at least in part is directed towards procuring changes in the laws or changing decisions of governments in a foreign state, it cannot be charitable as public benefit cannot be demonstrated." It may, the commission reassures us, be charitable to have a trust that helps enforce existing laws – it would give charitable status to a trust to fund prosecution of homosexuals in Uganda. And it mentions with approval a trust to reward policemen for doing their duty. But trying to change a barbaric law can never be a good thing. As WS Gilbert parodied the philosophy of the Chancery lawyer: "The law is the true embodiment of everything that's excellent." How an organisation could contort itself into this position is hard to understand. Margaret Hodge last year declared that the commission was not fit for purpose after it had been caught approving a blatant tax avoidance scheme: "It is undermining public faith in good causes," she said. Its decision on the Human Dignity Trust suggests it simply does not understand what causes are good. |