The Charity Tribunal has overturned the regulator’s decision not to register the Independent Press Regulation Trust, which will fund a new regulator for the press, as a charity.

IPRT has been set up to fund an independent press regulator to promote ethical conduct and best practice in journalism. It has indicated that it is likely to support Impress, which is an organisation that has set itself up as an alternative to the Press Complaints Commission, Ipso, but may also fund others.

In October 2014 the Commission published its decision not to register the organisation as a charity as it could not be clear that supporting the regulation of the press was a charitable.

Three rustees of IPPR - Wilfrid Vernor-Miles, a solicitor, Christian Flackett, an investment manager, and Richard Rees-Pulley, an accountant - appealed to the Charity Tribunal, which has overturned the Commission’s decision.

The case was heard in May and produced a judgement which said that the organisation’s objectives can be considered charitable. The tribunal has directed the Commission to register it.

The judgement refers to the Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendation that an independent press regulator should be established and said: “If such a regulator cannot be established by the government for constitutional reasons and ought not to be established by the industry itself for reasons of propriety and public confidence, then the charity sector is uniquely placed to be able to offer both the mechanism and the means by which a benefit to the community as a whole can be achieved.”

A spokeswoman for the Commission said the regulator was considering the judgment, but could not say whether this meant it would accept it or would consider appealing.