Charity in UK Law

It is a function of the Crown as parens patriae to ensure the due administration of established charities and the proper application of funds devoted to charitable purposes. In every such case the Court would be acting upon the basis that the property affected is not in the beneficial ovmership of the persons or body in whom its legal ownership is vested but is devoted to charitable purposes, that is to say, is held upon charitable trusts.

Under English law charity has always received special treatment. It is therefore subject to special rules governing registration, administration, taxation and duration. Although not a state institution, a charity is subject to the constitutional protection of the Crown as parens patriae, acting through HM Attorney-General, to the state supervision of the Charity Commissioners and to the judicial supervision of this Court.

But three things may be said about it, which its author would surely not have denied: first that, since it is a classification of convenience, there may well be purposes which do not fit neatly into one or other of the headings: secondly, that the words used must not be given the force of a statute to be construed; and thirdly, that the law of charity is a moving subject which may well have evolved even since 1891.

My Lords, there are, I think, two propositions which must ever be borne in mind in any case in which the question is whether a trust is charitable. The first is that it is still the general law that a trust is not charitable and entitled to the privileges which charity confers, unless it is within the spirit and intendment of the preamble to the Statute of Elizabeth, ( 43 Eliz. c. 4), which is expressly preserved by S. 13(2) of the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1888.

The sum, in my opinion, is in no different position from a sum (having the requisite quality of recurrence) paid without conditions or counter stipulations out of taxed income under a covenant by a private individual to any charitable body. The Crown would neither admit nor deny that such a payment would be an annual payment to the charity within the meaning of Case III, or that the party paying it would be entitled to retain the tax, or that the charity would be entitled to recover it.

I should not leave this aspect of the matter without emphasising the specific nature of the decision I have reached, and the exceptional character of this case. But here, the Commission and CIFF asked the court to decide and it has done so. For that reason, the only remaining voting member of CIFF must be directed to approve it, otherwise the essential interests of charity which the court is there to protect would be put at risk.