Introduction
The title to this blog raises an odd question, doesn’t it? The well-known traditional view is that people who might benefit under a charitable trust are not beneficiaries, and therefore they have no right to enforce the trust in proceedings against the trustees. Only the Attorney General (or the Public Guardian and Trustee in Alberta and Ontario) has the jurisdiction to enforce a charitable trust and the people who might benefit under the trust must look to the Attorney General or the Public Guardian and Trustee to enforce the trust.
Objects under a discretionary trust, that is, persons who might become entitled to benefits if the trustees exercise a power of appointment in their favour, were at one time also thought not to have any interest in the trust property and therefore did not have any right to enforce the trust in proceedings against the trustees. However, in McPhail v Doulton,[1] Lord Wilberforce (who wrote the major decision) held that trustees of a power or a trust power are fiduciaries and can be controlled by the court in proceedings brought by objects of the power or trust power if the trustees exercised the power capriciously or beyond the terms permitted by the trust. The Privy Council came to a similar conclusion in Schmidt v Rosewood Trust Ltd.[2] It concerned trusts that contained wide powers of appointment. The trusts had been created by a wealthy Russian expat. He died unexpectedly and intestate, and his son was his administrator and a potential appointee under the trusts. The son tried to trace his father’s assets brought proceedings against the trustee to make full disclosure of them. The Privy Council held that although objects such as the son, do not have a proprietary interest in the trust property, in appropriate cases the court, in its inherent jurisdiction to supervise and intervene in the administration of trust, can order disclosure of trust documents. The Board expressed the view that the son had an exceptionally strong claim.
More recently, there have been indications in charitable trust cases that people who might benefit under a charitable trust may also be able to bring proceedings against the trustees who act contrary to the terms of the charitable trust. One such case is Bisrat v Kebede.[3] It concerned a trust established for the promotion of the interests of the Community of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The Management Committee sought to exclude certain members. Those members brought proceedings against the trustees. His Honour Judge Purle QC stated at paragraph 22:
I think one has to be careful of the use of the word “beneficiary” in this context. A charitable trust, as such, does not have beneficiaries in the same sense as beneficiaries under a private trust. No individual has any proprietary interest in the charity’s assets and funds as such, but a person may become a beneficiary in a loose sense as an object of the charitable trust. The advancing of the Ethiopian Orthodox faith would, in one sense, embrace all those of that faith. That would not make all members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, anywhere in the world, who are very considerable in number, persons interested in this charity, but I do think that regular worshippers, who have contributed as such to the acquisition of the assets of the charity, as well as worshipping at the church in its various forms over many years, are undoubtedly interested persons for this purpose.
A similar issue came before the Court of Appeal in Bhamani v Sattar,[4] and it is significant enough to consider here. Although English charity law differs from the law in the Canadian common law jurisdictions in that in England jurisdiction over charities has been assigned to the Charity Commission and the Attorney General, the law is sufficiently similar to Canadian law.
Facts
The case concerns an unincorporated charity, registered with the Charity Commission, known as Wembley Central Masjid. It operates religious activities for Muslims in one of the London broughs, where it has established a place of worship and a community centre. Its constitution describes a number of typical charitable objects. It also states that the Masjid provides facilities for daily prayers and prayers on other occasions, and for the advancement of and to promote the social welfare of the Community. Any Muslim was entitled to be a member of the Masjid if he agrees to subscribe to its aims and objects. The property was registered in the names of five persons. The Claimants are either members of the Management Committee or trustees of the Masjid. The Defendants are worshippers at the Masjid, many of them of long standing. The Claimants brought an action against the Defendants in which they claim an injunction to restrain the Defendants from entering the premises. They applied for summary judgment on the ground that they are entitled on behalf of the Masjid to possession of the premises and therefore entitled to refuse access to the Defendants. The Defendants argued that the Claimants were not exercising their powers as charity trustees for the purposes they were given, namely, to further the purposes of the Masjid. Rather, they were trying to silence opposition by the Defendants to their actions and thereby they breached their fiduciary duty. The judge at first instance dismissed the application because it raised issues of fact that could not be resolved on the application for summary judgment.[5] Not all members of the Management Committee joined as Claimants, but all supported it, and therefore the judge held that the Claimants were charity trustees and had standing to bring the proceedings on behalf of the Masjid. The Claimants appealed.
Analysis and Judgment
The court reviewed the lengthy background to the proceedings, which showed that the affairs of the Masjid had not run smoothly for some years and that the Charity Commission had occasion to write to the trustees on several occasions. Some members, including the Defendants, were in favour of a more inclusive approach, whereas others promoted a stricter or “anti-inclusive” approach. The Management Committee dismissed Mr. Sattar from his position as Imam, a position he had held for many years. He favoured a more inclusive approach. After certain altercations in 2019, the Management Committee closed the Masjid for a few days and resolved to deny entry to the premises to members of the congregation involved in the incident. The Defendants later submitted revised undertakings to abide by the Masjid’s Code of Conduct. The court also reviewed other aspects of the judgment at first instance, in which the Judge held that the Management Committee does not have an absolute or unfettered right to exclude members of the Community without regard to their duties as charitable trustees.
The claimants raised a number of grounds for the appeal. I shall address only the two most relevant ones, namely:
(2) that the Judge was wrong to find that the Defendants could in principle defend a claim in trespass on the grounds that the Claimants were in breach of their duties as charity trustees; and
(3) that the Judge failed to find that the Defendants’ proposed defence amounted to charity proceedings within the meaning of s 115(8) of the Charities Act,[6] for which the Defendants neither had authorization from the Charity Commission nor permission from the Court.
Lord Justice Nugee, who wrote the judgment for the court, noted with respect to the second ground of appeal that in their amended defence the Defendants alleged that the Claimants’ actions were not to further the purposes of the Masjid but to silence opposition and to promote a particular, restrictive, sectarian and fundamentalist place of worship instead of continuing its inclusive practices. In his Lordship’s view, in principle this should be considered a good defence to the claim in trespass by persons who are objects of the charity as against charity trustees who are not acting to further the purposes of the charity but for some collateral purpose. He held that the Management Committee’s power to control access to the premises must be exercised for the purpose for which it was conferred, namely, the furtherance of the purposes of the Masjid. The Constitution made it clear that those purposes were the provision of facilities for prayers for the benefit of Muslims residing in the Borough and that membership was open to all Muslims regardless of race, colour or gender and country of origin. In the circumstances, he held that the allegations put forward by the Defendants in their amended defence, were capable, if established at trial, to prove that the Management Committee failed to exercise the powers given to it for the purposes of the Masjid. His Lordship noted in paragraph 43:
If the Management Committee are using their power for a collateral or ulterior purpose, that is a misuse of their powers. I do not see that the Court has any business granting an injunction barring the Defendants from the premises from the Premises if that is shown to be something that is being sought as a result of the Management Committee misusing their powers in this way.
Moreover, the Defendants were entitled to use this point as a defence to the claim which barred them from the premises. In other words, the Defendants had standing to raise this point. The Claimants argued that the Defendants did not have a private law right to insist on access to the premises; instead, they were seeking to rely on the right of the public to see that a charity was properly administered. His Lordship disagreed. He stated:
- I do not accept this submission. I accept of course that the Defendants are not beneficiaries of the charitable trusts in same way that beneficiaries of a private trust are: a charitable trust does not have beneficiaries in the strict sense at all, or as it is sometimes said, the beneficiary of a charitable trust is charity itself. And I accept that charitable trusts are trusts of a public nature: it has always been a requirement of a valid charitable trust that it is for the public benefit … and they are regulated by the Charity Commission and enforced by the Commission and by the Attorney-General, in the public interest. But although charities do not have individual beneficiaries in the private trust sense, that does not mean that they do not benefit individuals. Educational charities educate individuals. charities for the relief of poverty relieve the poverty of individuals, and religious charities such as the Masjid provide facilities for worship for individuals. In the present case the Masjid was established for the benefit of the Community as defined in Article 3, that is Muslims in the relevant area, and among other things to provide services for those in the Community who wish to attend prayers in the Masjid. All such persons (whether members of the Masjid or not) are objects of the charity in this looser sense …[7]
- In those circumstances, the Defendants have a direct and personal interest in seeing that the charity, which was established for, among others, their benefit is being properly administered. They are not strangers to the charity with no more interest in it than any member of the public. Indeed Mr. Roseman accepted that they are persons “interested in the charity” (within the meaning of s. 115(1)(c) of the Charities Act 2011). Mr. Qamar’s evidence is that they are regular worshipper at the Masjid where they have attended for decades, and that he himself has attended since he moved to Wembley nearly 20 years ago and has previously served on two Management Committees. Where it is sought to bar them from attending prayers at the Masjid and thereby deprive them of the benefits the Masjid was intended to provide, I see no reason why they should not be able to raise as a defence to the claim the allegation that in issuing the Prohibition and bringing the action the Management Committee is misusing its power for an ulterior purpose …
His Lordship made two additional points:
- First, this conclusion does not mean that the defendants, or any other objects of the Masjid, could initiate proceedings complaining of breaches of duty by the Management Committee. This trespasses onto Ground 3, but I do not mean to go any further than to say that, when sued, the Defendants as objects of the charity can raise this point as a defence to defend themselves.
- Second, in his written submissions Mr. Roseman said that such a conclusion would have startling consequences as it would mean, for example, that trespassers on National Trust land could seek to defend a claim to remove them on the basis of alleged breaches of trust. That to my mind does not follow. Trespassers with no interest in the charity at all would be in a very different position to the Defendants here, who are members of the very class the charity was established to benefit. All that I mean to decide is that since the Masjid was established, among other things, to enable members of the Community to attend prayers, those Defendants who are members of the Community and wish to attend prayers are able to defend a claim for an injunction barring them from doing so by raising the defence that the Management Committee is not using its powers for the purposes of the Masjid but for some collateral and ulterior purpose of their own.
Lord Justice Nugee then turned to the third ground of appeal, namely that the defence sought to be raised by the Defendants would in effect convert the proceedings into charity proceedings and that the authorization of the Charity Commission or leave of the Court is required for such proceedings in accordance with s 115 of the Charities Act 2011. Section 15(2) prohibits charity proceedings unless the taking of them is authorized by order of the Commission, and s 115(8) defines “charity proceedings” as proceedings in any court in England or Wales brought under (the court’s jurisdiction with respect to charities, or (b) the court’s jurisdiction with respect to trusts in relation to the administration of a trust for charitable purposes.
His Lordship disagreed with this ground. It was agreed that when Claimants issued their claim the proceedings were not charity proceedings, because they were brought to enforce common law rights, namely, redress for the alleged tort of trespass in this case. The Claimants argued that if the Defendants are allowed to raise their proposed defence, that would raise questions relating to the administration of the trust for charitable purposes, for which the Commission’s authorization is required under s 115. To this argument his Lordship responded:
- I do not doubt that if the Defendants had sought to issue a claim against the Claimants alleging that they were mismanaging the affairs of the Masjid and seeking relief on that basis, such proceedings would indeed be charity proceedings and require the authorization of the Charity Commission or the leave of a High Court Judge. But pleading a defence to a claim is not in my judgement “bringing” of proceedings, nor it is the “taking” of proceedings. It follows that if the proposed defence is pleaded, there will be no “proceedings … brought under … the court’s jurisdiction with respect to trusts” and hence no charity proceedings within s 115(8((b); nor could it be said that the authorization of the Charity Commission would be required for “the taking of the proceedings” within s 115(2). The proceedings would remain proceedings brought by the Claimants to enforce their common law rights; and the pleadings by the Defendants of the defence would not change the nature of the Claimants’ claim, nor would it itself be the bringing of proceedings by the Defendants.
His Lordship recognized that proceedings could change from not being charity proceedings to being charitable proceeding, but that had not occurred in this case.
Relevance in the Canadian Context
The obvious question is what relevance this case has in the Canadian context, since we do not have the same regulatory regime that England has. In particular. we do not have Charity Commissions. All true. But in Canadian common law jurisdictions it is accepted that private individuals, whether objects of a charity or not, cannot launch proceedings against charitable trustees to enforce the terms of the charitable trust. Instead, they must refer the matter to the provincial Attorney General to whom the Crown has delegated is parens patriae jurisdiction over charities.[8] In other words, private individuals cannot commence “charity proceedings” against a charity.
On the other hand, as the Bhamani case makes clear, individuals who have a close connection to a particular charity in the sense that they receive benefits from it or are otherwise entitled to receive or take advantage of its services, can defend against claims by the charity purporting to deprive them of such benefits or services. But as the case also makes clear, persons who do not have such a connection to the charity lack such a right. This is clear, for example, from paragraph 48 of the judgment reproduced above.
Does that make persons with a close connection to a charity, beneficiaries? The case makes it clear that they can be considered beneficiaries only in a loose sense, and in my view, it is best to avoid that moniker for objects of a charity. The fact that certain objects, because of their close connection to a charity are entitled to defend their entitlement to benefits or services does not make them beneficiaries.
Finally, it is clear from the case that the public in general do not have the right to enforce a charitable trust. Thus, for example, a non-Muslim or a Muslim not resident in the area of the Masjid in the Bhamani case could not bring proceedings to enforce the trust. Similarly, when a trust that seeks to relieve poverty in a particular area of a city, a person who lives outside that area, or a wealthy person who does live in the area would have not standing to enforce the trust.
Finally, although the case does not address this point directly, the judgment implies that a charity which provides services or benefits to members or others closely associated with it, can exclude persons who are disruptive of its operations or are acting contrary to the charity’s purposes, if the charity can establish this fact.
—
[1] [1971] AC 424 (HL).
[2] [2003] UKPC 26, [2003] 2 AC 709 (PC).
[3] [2015 EWHC 840 (Ch).
[4] [2021] EWCA Civ 243.
[5] [2020] EWHC 2488 (Ch) (Deputy Judge, Mr. Tom Leech, QC).
[6] 2011, c 25. Section 115(1) provides that Charity proceedings may be taken with reference to a charity, inter alia, by any person interested in the charity. Subsection (8) provides:
(8) In this section “charity proceedings” means proceedings in any court in England or Wales brought under—
(a) the court’s jurisdiction with respect to charities, or
(b) the court’s jurisdiction with respect to trusts in relation to the administration of a trust for charitable purposes.
[7] Here his Lordship referred to the passage from Bisrat v Kebede reproduced in the text at footnote 3, supra.
[8] Or to the Public Guardian and Trustee in Alberta and Ontario to whom the Attorney General has sub-delegated that jurisdiction.
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Written by: Albert Oosterhoff
Posted on: August 21, 2024
Categories: Charitable Trusts, Commentary, Trusts, WEL Newsletter
Introduction
The title to this blog raises an odd question, doesn’t it? The well-known traditional view is that people who might benefit under a charitable trust are not beneficiaries, and therefore they have no right to enforce the trust in proceedings against the trustees. Only the Attorney General (or the Public Guardian and Trustee in Alberta and Ontario) has the jurisdiction to enforce a charitable trust and the people who might benefit under the trust must look to the Attorney General or the Public Guardian and Trustee to enforce the trust.
Objects under a discretionary trust, that is, persons who might become entitled to benefits if the trustees exercise a power of appointment in their favour, were at one time also thought not to have any interest in the trust property and therefore did not have any right to enforce the trust in proceedings against the trustees. However, in McPhail v Doulton,[1] Lord Wilberforce (who wrote the major decision) held that trustees of a power or a trust power are fiduciaries and can be controlled by the court in proceedings brought by objects of the power or trust power if the trustees exercised the power capriciously or beyond the terms permitted by the trust. The Privy Council came to a similar conclusion in Schmidt v Rosewood Trust Ltd.[2] It concerned trusts that contained wide powers of appointment. The trusts had been created by a wealthy Russian expat. He died unexpectedly and intestate, and his son was his administrator and a potential appointee under the trusts. The son tried to trace his father’s assets brought proceedings against the trustee to make full disclosure of them. The Privy Council held that although objects such as the son, do not have a proprietary interest in the trust property, in appropriate cases the court, in its inherent jurisdiction to supervise and intervene in the administration of trust, can order disclosure of trust documents. The Board expressed the view that the son had an exceptionally strong claim.
More recently, there have been indications in charitable trust cases that people who might benefit under a charitable trust may also be able to bring proceedings against the trustees who act contrary to the terms of the charitable trust. One such case is Bisrat v Kebede.[3] It concerned a trust established for the promotion of the interests of the Community of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The Management Committee sought to exclude certain members. Those members brought proceedings against the trustees. His Honour Judge Purle QC stated at paragraph 22:
I think one has to be careful of the use of the word “beneficiary” in this context. A charitable trust, as such, does not have beneficiaries in the same sense as beneficiaries under a private trust. No individual has any proprietary interest in the charity’s assets and funds as such, but a person may become a beneficiary in a loose sense as an object of the charitable trust. The advancing of the Ethiopian Orthodox faith would, in one sense, embrace all those of that faith. That would not make all members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, anywhere in the world, who are very considerable in number, persons interested in this charity, but I do think that regular worshippers, who have contributed as such to the acquisition of the assets of the charity, as well as worshipping at the church in its various forms over many years, are undoubtedly interested persons for this purpose.
A similar issue came before the Court of Appeal in Bhamani v Sattar,[4] and it is significant enough to consider here. Although English charity law differs from the law in the Canadian common law jurisdictions in that in England jurisdiction over charities has been assigned to the Charity Commission and the Attorney General, the law is sufficiently similar to Canadian law.
Facts
The case concerns an unincorporated charity, registered with the Charity Commission, known as Wembley Central Masjid. It operates religious activities for Muslims in one of the London broughs, where it has established a place of worship and a community centre. Its constitution describes a number of typical charitable objects. It also states that the Masjid provides facilities for daily prayers and prayers on other occasions, and for the advancement of and to promote the social welfare of the Community. Any Muslim was entitled to be a member of the Masjid if he agrees to subscribe to its aims and objects. The property was registered in the names of five persons. The Claimants are either members of the Management Committee or trustees of the Masjid. The Defendants are worshippers at the Masjid, many of them of long standing. The Claimants brought an action against the Defendants in which they claim an injunction to restrain the Defendants from entering the premises. They applied for summary judgment on the ground that they are entitled on behalf of the Masjid to possession of the premises and therefore entitled to refuse access to the Defendants. The Defendants argued that the Claimants were not exercising their powers as charity trustees for the purposes they were given, namely, to further the purposes of the Masjid. Rather, they were trying to silence opposition by the Defendants to their actions and thereby they breached their fiduciary duty. The judge at first instance dismissed the application because it raised issues of fact that could not be resolved on the application for summary judgment.[5] Not all members of the Management Committee joined as Claimants, but all supported it, and therefore the judge held that the Claimants were charity trustees and had standing to bring the proceedings on behalf of the Masjid. The Claimants appealed.
Analysis and Judgment
The court reviewed the lengthy background to the proceedings, which showed that the affairs of the Masjid had not run smoothly for some years and that the Charity Commission had occasion to write to the trustees on several occasions. Some members, including the Defendants, were in favour of a more inclusive approach, whereas others promoted a stricter or “anti-inclusive” approach. The Management Committee dismissed Mr. Sattar from his position as Imam, a position he had held for many years. He favoured a more inclusive approach. After certain altercations in 2019, the Management Committee closed the Masjid for a few days and resolved to deny entry to the premises to members of the congregation involved in the incident. The Defendants later submitted revised undertakings to abide by the Masjid’s Code of Conduct. The court also reviewed other aspects of the judgment at first instance, in which the Judge held that the Management Committee does not have an absolute or unfettered right to exclude members of the Community without regard to their duties as charitable trustees.
The claimants raised a number of grounds for the appeal. I shall address only the two most relevant ones, namely:
(2) that the Judge was wrong to find that the Defendants could in principle defend a claim in trespass on the grounds that the Claimants were in breach of their duties as charity trustees; and
(3) that the Judge failed to find that the Defendants’ proposed defence amounted to charity proceedings within the meaning of s 115(8) of the Charities Act,[6] for which the Defendants neither had authorization from the Charity Commission nor permission from the Court.
Lord Justice Nugee, who wrote the judgment for the court, noted with respect to the second ground of appeal that in their amended defence the Defendants alleged that the Claimants’ actions were not to further the purposes of the Masjid but to silence opposition and to promote a particular, restrictive, sectarian and fundamentalist place of worship instead of continuing its inclusive practices. In his Lordship’s view, in principle this should be considered a good defence to the claim in trespass by persons who are objects of the charity as against charity trustees who are not acting to further the purposes of the charity but for some collateral purpose. He held that the Management Committee’s power to control access to the premises must be exercised for the purpose for which it was conferred, namely, the furtherance of the purposes of the Masjid. The Constitution made it clear that those purposes were the provision of facilities for prayers for the benefit of Muslims residing in the Borough and that membership was open to all Muslims regardless of race, colour or gender and country of origin. In the circumstances, he held that the allegations put forward by the Defendants in their amended defence, were capable, if established at trial, to prove that the Management Committee failed to exercise the powers given to it for the purposes of the Masjid. His Lordship noted in paragraph 43:
If the Management Committee are using their power for a collateral or ulterior purpose, that is a misuse of their powers. I do not see that the Court has any business granting an injunction barring the Defendants from the premises from the Premises if that is shown to be something that is being sought as a result of the Management Committee misusing their powers in this way.
Moreover, the Defendants were entitled to use this point as a defence to the claim which barred them from the premises. In other words, the Defendants had standing to raise this point. The Claimants argued that the Defendants did not have a private law right to insist on access to the premises; instead, they were seeking to rely on the right of the public to see that a charity was properly administered. His Lordship disagreed. He stated:
His Lordship made two additional points:
Lord Justice Nugee then turned to the third ground of appeal, namely that the defence sought to be raised by the Defendants would in effect convert the proceedings into charity proceedings and that the authorization of the Charity Commission or leave of the Court is required for such proceedings in accordance with s 115 of the Charities Act 2011. Section 15(2) prohibits charity proceedings unless the taking of them is authorized by order of the Commission, and s 115(8) defines “charity proceedings” as proceedings in any court in England or Wales brought under (the court’s jurisdiction with respect to charities, or (b) the court’s jurisdiction with respect to trusts in relation to the administration of a trust for charitable purposes.
His Lordship disagreed with this ground. It was agreed that when Claimants issued their claim the proceedings were not charity proceedings, because they were brought to enforce common law rights, namely, redress for the alleged tort of trespass in this case. The Claimants argued that if the Defendants are allowed to raise their proposed defence, that would raise questions relating to the administration of the trust for charitable purposes, for which the Commission’s authorization is required under s 115. To this argument his Lordship responded:
His Lordship recognized that proceedings could change from not being charity proceedings to being charitable proceeding, but that had not occurred in this case.
Relevance in the Canadian Context
The obvious question is what relevance this case has in the Canadian context, since we do not have the same regulatory regime that England has. In particular. we do not have Charity Commissions. All true. But in Canadian common law jurisdictions it is accepted that private individuals, whether objects of a charity or not, cannot launch proceedings against charitable trustees to enforce the terms of the charitable trust. Instead, they must refer the matter to the provincial Attorney General to whom the Crown has delegated is parens patriae jurisdiction over charities.[8] In other words, private individuals cannot commence “charity proceedings” against a charity.
On the other hand, as the Bhamani case makes clear, individuals who have a close connection to a particular charity in the sense that they receive benefits from it or are otherwise entitled to receive or take advantage of its services, can defend against claims by the charity purporting to deprive them of such benefits or services. But as the case also makes clear, persons who do not have such a connection to the charity lack such a right. This is clear, for example, from paragraph 48 of the judgment reproduced above.
Does that make persons with a close connection to a charity, beneficiaries? The case makes it clear that they can be considered beneficiaries only in a loose sense, and in my view, it is best to avoid that moniker for objects of a charity. The fact that certain objects, because of their close connection to a charity are entitled to defend their entitlement to benefits or services does not make them beneficiaries.
Finally, it is clear from the case that the public in general do not have the right to enforce a charitable trust. Thus, for example, a non-Muslim or a Muslim not resident in the area of the Masjid in the Bhamani case could not bring proceedings to enforce the trust. Similarly, when a trust that seeks to relieve poverty in a particular area of a city, a person who lives outside that area, or a wealthy person who does live in the area would have not standing to enforce the trust.
Finally, although the case does not address this point directly, the judgment implies that a charity which provides services or benefits to members or others closely associated with it, can exclude persons who are disruptive of its operations or are acting contrary to the charity’s purposes, if the charity can establish this fact.
—
[1] [1971] AC 424 (HL).
[2] [2003] UKPC 26, [2003] 2 AC 709 (PC).
[3] [2015 EWHC 840 (Ch).
[4] [2021] EWCA Civ 243.
[5] [2020] EWHC 2488 (Ch) (Deputy Judge, Mr. Tom Leech, QC).
[6] 2011, c 25. Section 115(1) provides that Charity proceedings may be taken with reference to a charity, inter alia, by any person interested in the charity. Subsection (8) provides:
(8) In this section “charity proceedings” means proceedings in any court in England or Wales brought under—
(a) the court’s jurisdiction with respect to charities, or
(b) the court’s jurisdiction with respect to trusts in relation to the administration of a trust for charitable purposes.
[7] Here his Lordship referred to the passage from Bisrat v Kebede reproduced in the text at footnote 3, supra.
[8] Or to the Public Guardian and Trustee in Alberta and Ontario to whom the Attorney General has sub-delegated that jurisdiction.
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