The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland has lost an appeal against a judgment that a single trustee can challenge it in court, following an intervention by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland.
The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland ruled that the Charity Tribunal had made a mistake when it said that a single trustee could not appeal against a decision of the Charity Commission to hold a statutory inquiry into a charity.
The judgment is the latest in a series of cases in which the Attorney General for Northern Ireland has challenged the CCNI over its handling of inquiries. The CCNI has faced a series of legal challenges from several sources, including a volunteer group called Probity set up expressly to challenge its official decisions.
In this case, the Disabled Police Officers Association of Northern Ireland was the charity involved. William Allen, one of the DPOANI’s trustees and a former chairman, appealed against the Commission’s decision to conduct an inquiry into the charity, and to suspend him as a trustee, which took place in 2014.
The Charity Tribunal ruled against his application, on the basis that the whole trustee board was required to bring an appeal, not a single trustee.
But the Attorney General for Northern Ireland intervened to challenge this decision of behalf of the trustees, saying that the tribunal had misinterpreted the law.
The decision hinged on the interpretation of the word “persons” in legislation, and whether that referred to one person, several people, or a group of people acting together. The Court of Appeal held that one person could bring an appeal, and dismissed the Charity Commission appeal.
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