The Human Dignity Trust, which campaigns against the criminalisation of homosexuals in foreign countries, has failed to convince the Charity Commission to register it as a charity.
The Trust will appeal to the Charity Tribunal.
Today the Commission announced that it has upheld its earlier decision not to register the Trust (HDT) as a charity, because, it said, the Trust’s main objective is to change the law and that is a political purpose, not a charitable one.
The HDT works to support individuals who seek to challenge legislation criminalising consensual sexual activity between same-sex adults in certain countries. It applied to register as a charity in July 2011, and requested a decision review after the Commission refused registration in June 2012.
The regulator said it recognised the value of HDT’s work and that its decision is no reflection on the merits of its aims and activities, but nevertheless it has concluded that the HDT “is not established for exclusively charitable purposes for the public benefit”.
The main activity of the HDT is to bring legal proceedings in certain foreign countries, or in international courts, to clarify the law where the HDT considers that domestic legislation criminalising homosexuality is at variance with constitutional law or international law.
The Commission says that the purposes of HDT are not cast in an “exclusively charitable form” and that it cannot meet the public benefit requirement for a charity as its purpose is directed towards changing the law.
In its decision report, the Commission quoted from case law: “The mere fact that an organisation may have philanthropic purposes of an excellent character does not by itself entitle it to acceptance as a charity in law.”
The report also stated: “It is a longstanding and important rule in charity law that political purposes cannot be charitable purposes, as changes to the law or government decisions, either in this country or abroad, cannot necessarily be seen as beneficial and therefore meeting the public benefit requirement.”
William Shawcross, Commission chairman, said he “sympathised with the aims of the Human Dignity Trust” but the Commission “cannot and must not make our decisions based on value judgements about the merits of an organisation’s aims or activities”.
The regulator’s role, he said, is to assess whether an organisation is charitable in law – and in this case the Trust is not.
“I appreciate this decision will come as a disappointment to the Trust and its supporters,” Shawcross added.
Kenneth Dibble, the regulator’s chief legal adviser, said advancing human rights can be a charitable purpose so long as the public benefit requirement is met, but case law dictates that purposes that focus on changing laws are not charitable, “however desirable such changes might seem”.
“After carefully considering the purposes of the Human Dignity Trust, we have concluded that they are not exclusively charitable in law,” Dibble said. “We recognise and respect the legal arguments made by the Trust, but we are bound to follow the law as we understand it given the important legal principle involved.”
HDT CEO Jonathan Cooper told civilsociety.co.uk this morning that the Trust was extremely disappointed and would be appealing to the Charity Tribunal.
He said the Trust had taken advice from top QCs and believed it was entitled to charitable status.
The full decision is available on the Charity Commission’s website.
