A judge will decide whether to allow a judicial review of an inquiry report published by the Charity Commission earlier this year into the collapsed Kids Company charity.
Kids Company founder Camila Batmanghelidjh announced her intention to bring a judicial review of the Commission’s findings when they were published in February.
Yesterday, a judge heard skeleton arguments from Batmanghelidjh and the Commission over the potential review, which they will decide whether to grant shortly.
Batmanghelidjh's argument says the Commission’s report makes “a number of unwarranted, irrational and unreasonable criticisms of Kids Company” and is “unbalanced, unfair and unlawful”.
It says the report is “tainted by predetermination” and accuses the Commission of being “determined to produce a report that was critical of Kids Company”.
The document accused the Commission of taking “a contrary view” to a High Court ruling from last year, which cleared Batmanghelidjh and Kid’s Company’s trustees and chief executive of running an unsustainable business.
In its skeleton argument, the Commission says “there is no proper basis for concluding that [its] findings as contained in the [inquiry report statement] are tainted by irrationality”.
It says its conclusions were “fair and supported by the evidence” and disputes Batmanghelidjh’s allegation of “predetermination”.
The Commission argues that it was not required to adopt the findings of the High Court ruling “but it also does not accept that there are such inconsistencies between her judgment and its own findings that would give rise to a finding of irrationality or predetermination”.
In addition, the Commission says the judge should refuse Batmanghelidjh’s judicial review application because it “was not brought promptly and so permission ought to be refused in any event due to delay”.
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