When is a charity not a charity? The recent “Greenpeace Case”

The High Court recently upheld a decision of the Charities Commission not to grant Greenpeace charitable status. The main reason for denying Greenpeace status as a charity was that its purposes of promoting disarmament and peace were political in nature, and therefore, according to the Commission, not charitable.

The law currently prevents an organisation from being registered as a charity if it has political purposes. The exception to this is if the political purposes are “secondary, subordinate, or incidental to a charitable purpose” and “not an independent purpose” of the organisation.

In this case, the High Court stated that the extent to which Greenpeace relies on its political activities to advance its causes “means that the political element cannot be regarded as ‘merely ancillary’ to its charitable purposes.”

This case confirmed that the Charities Commission is entitled to reject an organisation’s application for registration as a charity if that organisation undertakes political activities.

However, the High Court hinted that this area of law may be reconsidered by the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court in light of recent Australian case law. The High Court of Australia has found that political activities will not disqualify an organisation from being charitable, provided of course that those political activities further the organisation’s charitable purposes. Greenpeace may well appeal the decision to the Court of Appeal. So, watch this space …