Catholic Care requests leave to appeal again 6

Governance | Tania Mason | 31 May 2011

Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) has applied for leave to appeal the latest decision against it in the long-running case sparked by the Charity Commission’s refusal to allow it to prevent gay couples from using its adoption services.

Benjamin James, the Bircham Dyson Bell partner representing the charity, told CivilSociety.co.uk that he had lodged the application with the Charity Tribunal on Sunday of last week. The Charity Tribunal now has to decide whether to grant leave to appeal. If it does, the appeal will be heard in the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery) by judges including Mr Justice Warren, the judge that presided over the public benefit case brought by the Independent Schools Council against the Charity Commission earlier this month.

James said he had identified a number of errors in law in the Charity Tribunal judgement and so Catholic Care felt it was right to mount a fresh challenge.

If leave is granted, the Upper Tribunal hearing will be the eighth stage of the case. James said the charity’s trustees had given great consideration to the cost involved. “They are very conscious of the charity’s money and of the work they do with children, but they have spoken to donors and realised they won’t have any money to do anything with children if they let this go,” he said.

He said that if the trustees had been a given a clear answer based on law of how the Equality Act exemption can and cannot be applied, they might find it easier to accept the Charity Commission’s decision. But to date this has never been provided.

“The number of letters the charity has received opposing their position is less than ten, while they have had hundreds expressing positive support – and not just from Catholics,” James added.

He declined to say how much the case had cost so far but said it had been funded by donations, a legacy and a grant from a US foundation which supports legal actions for Catholic beliefs, with the charity making up the difference.

Directory: Bircham Dyson Bell

Place a comment

Andy
4 Jun 2011

@ Janet—There’s a difference between being bigoted and being true to your values. The bigots in this case are those who are trying to impose their values on Catholic Care.

@ Karen—It's not the Catholic Church who are funding this; it's the charity, who will have no reason to exist if the current ruling stands … and financial supporters who care about the outcome for these vulnerable children.

@Stolen—You are right; one groups 'rights' clash with another's. Who arbitrates? (It's pejorative to refer to it as revenge though.)

The letters that the charity has received shows the sort of response that ordinary people have to this sort of attack on organisations helping the most vulnerable in our society.

[Reply]

Alfred
School Teacher
3 Jun 2011

Children belong with a mother and a father and no amount of social engineering will change that. That is not ideology but evolution. The Catholic adoption societies are right to resist this imposed view in any way that they can.

As far as spending money on lawyers...if it improves the outcomes of the children in their care(and it just might) then its worth it.

[Reply]

Karen Drury
partner
fe3 consulting
1 Jun 2011

Good to see that the Catholic Church has sufficient money to spend on lawyers in this time of economic crisis.

[Reply]

Tony Ford
31 May 2011

Good for them! If the law has not been explained sufficiently well to them, they deserve a good answer from those imposing their values on the society - and wider society, too!

[Reply]

Stolen
31 May 2011

Seems the rights that one (LGBT) movement fought for ends being something stolen from another movement.

More a case of revenge than rights.

[Reply]

Janet Bull
31 May 2011

Catholic Care should be ashamed of themselves on two counts:
1. Being bigotted and stuck in the 19th century
2. Wasting an appalling amount of money by being bigotted and stuck in the 19th century

[Reply]

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