Charity Tribunal shapes up
The Charity Tribunal (see Catherine Rustomji's article, Checking the timetable), which has been open for business since 18 March 2008, has appointed its five legal members: Stephen Claus (see Stephen Claus' article, Not what they used to be), Nigel Gerald, Peter Hinchliffe, Jonathan Holbrooke and Vivien Rose. Alison McKenna, who has dual qualification as a barrister and solicitor advocate took up her appointment as the first president of the Charity Tribunal in June...
A further seven lay members are likely to be appointed by the end of July or early August, and this should bring the hands-on sector experience into the tribunal team.
Addressing members of the Charity Law Association last month, Ms McKenna commented: ‘The tribunal’s service target is for 75 per cent of cases to be completed (that includes the written judgment being sent to the parties) within 30 weeks. If the parties agree it would usually be possible to shorten that timescale. The Charity Tribunal has been resourced on the basis that we will have 50 cases a year, so unless we are deluged with cases we should be working within that target.’
The very first appeal was lodged in June, as a result of the Charity Commission taking the decision to remove Mr Nagendram Seevaratnam as trustee, charity trustee, agent and/or office of the London Hindu charity, Sivoayogam on 27 March 2008. It states: ‘There was sufficient evidence of mismanagement or misconduct…in the adminstration of the charity.’ This also disqualifies him from being a charity trustee or a trustee of any other charity under the provisions of s 72 Charities Act 2006. At the time of writing a date for the hearing had not been set. The Government announced a shake-up of the tribunals system on 19 May; individual tribunal jurisdictions will be brought together into a simplified twotier system, comprising a first tier and upper tribunal that goes live on 3 November 2008. This will be a court of record, able to deal with onward appeals and judicial reviews.
The Charity Tribunal will be included in the lower tier sometime in early 2009 and therefore not be a court of record, although it is understood that Charity Tribunal decisions will be published on its website.
www.charity.tribunals.gov.uk
www.justice.gov.uk
www.charitycommission.gov.uk/tcc/fdcase.asp
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