PUBLIC BENEFIT IN CHARITIES
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1958.tb00465.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1958 |
| Author | P. S. Atiyah |
| Date | 01 March 1958 |
PUBLIC BENEFIT IN CHARITIES
IT
has become a commonplace that a charity must, with one
possible exception, be
for
the benefit of the public
or
a section of
the public, but in recent years the application of this rule has
given rise to
a
large number of problems for the courts have
found considerable difficulty in deciding what exactly
is
the public
or
a section of the public for this purpose. And now a justification
for a complete re-examination
of
the whole subject is to be found
in the recent decision of the House of Lords in
I.
R.
C.
v.
Baddeley
where, although the case was ultimately decided on other grounds,
the judgments of their Lordships abound
in
dicta on this point.
The object of this article, then, is to examine who
or
what
is
the
public
or
a section of the public for the purposes of the law relating
to charities.
Before turning in detail to
this
examination three preliminary
questions require consideration.
In
the
first
place, to what extent
is the law of public benefit common to the four traditional heads
of
charity, trusts for the relief of poverty, trusts for the promotion
of education, trusts for the advancement of religion, and trusts
for
other purposes beneficial
to
the community? Secondly, must
a trust for the benefit of a section of the community also benefit
the public at large in order to qualify as a charity
?
And thirdly,
does “the public
”
necessarily mean the public of the United
Kingdom
?
1.
To
WHAT
EXTENT
IS
THE
LAW
OF
PUBLIC
BENEFIT
COMMON
TO
THE
FOUR
HEADS
OF
CHARITY?
As is well known the poverty cases stand apart, and if there is
any requirement of public benefit in trusts for the relief of poverty
it is certainly much less stringent than in other cases. But, leaving
the poverty cascs on one side, can it be said that the requirement
of public benefit is the same in all other cases? Until recently
it
is probably true to say that most lawyers would have said that (apart
from the poverty cases) a class
of
beneficiaries which could be
regarded
as
a section of the public for one head
of
charity would
be
so
regarded for all others. But there are thought-provoking dicta
in
I.
R.
C.
v.
Baddeley
which suggest that this is probably not
SO.^
Thus Lord Somervell said
:
1
119551
A.C.
572.
For
the effect
of
the Recreational Charities
Bill,
now before
Parliament,
Bee
Postwript at
p.
154,
post.
2
Actually the euggestion wae first made by
Lord
Simonds in
Cilmour
v.
Coab
[1049]
A.C. at
449.
3
[1056]
A.C. at
616.
188
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