Catholic Care has been granted permission by the Upper Tribunal to appeal once again against the judgment that it may not discriminate against same sex couples when providing adoption services.

The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery) told the charity’s lawyers in writing last Friday that it believes “the appellant has a real prospect of success in establishing that the First Tier Tribunal (Charity) had erred in law in one of three ways”.

It said that the First Tier Tribunal may have improperly interpreted the Equality Act and the case of Smith and Grady v United Kingdom, and said that a limited degree of discrimination might have been proportionate compared to the benefit of continuing the service.

Speaking on behalf of the charity’s lawyers Bircham Dyson Bell, solicitor Benjamin James said he was hoping that the case would be heard by the end of the year, though this would be dependent on the Tribunal’s calendar.

On the appeal’s chances, he added: “If there was no prospect of success then you aren’t granted a permission to appeal, so there is a prospect of success.

“The difficulty with this is these are very complex issues; you’ll recall that last time the charity went to the equivalent of the Upper Tribunal, the High Court, it won but it just got pushed back to the Charity Commission and had to work its way through again.

“We’ve just got to see how it goes, but I think the Tribunal has indentified what could be considered to be issues missing from the lower tribunal decision.”