Judgement in Mermaids v Charity Commission tribunal expected in days

[RoyalCorgi]

This is the case where Mermaids challenged the Charity Commission's decision to give charitable status to the LGBA.

Don't have any more detail at the moment, but thought you'd all be interested. It's been a four month wait already.

Ohai there!

Even if we agree with mermaids that the lgba is 'anti trans', surely lots of charities are inherently passionately ideologically opposed to each other and probably offended by the very existence of the other? Eg an animal rights charity and the fox hunting benevolent fund, or a charity run by fundamentalist Christians and the society for prevention of cruelty to atheists. So if mermaids had won wouldn't it have set a precedent for many many similar lawsuits?

Hi JW

Funnily enough, I’d say LGBA may appear now to have been impacted by Mermaids 🤔

Not sure that works when they were registered afterwards but interesting thought.

This fact should be repeated more often.

Director of GLP. Now there’s a role there isnt enough money in the world to pay me to take.

So now Mermaids didn't actually lose because they weren't allowed to bring a case which is completely different

I have been thinking about another charity trying to do this again and I think most of them will struggle on the standing point. This judgement is clear that disagreement/ opposed purpose / competition for funding / factual challenge are all acceptable without affecting legal rights.
So the LGBA would have to be doing something that may directly impact the legal rights of another person (including a legal person like another charity). It’s hard to think of an example.
In addition, any other organisation bringing a case that similarly failed on standing would risk an examination of how a fruitless cases met its charitable objects.

The twisting, the turning... it's exhausting.

Jolyon's life is hard but he got to choose it. The road that brought him to another deeply technical loss, he did not.

The problem here was that they were simply different charities and one has no standing to bring another down like this. it is for the charity commission to deal with the issue of whether something is truly charitable or not eg I think Scientology (thank God) has never been given charitable status in the UK.

Precisely. This is why this is vexatious litigation.

It managed to tie the LGBA up in knots on a case that never had any chance of winning, because the carnage that would ensue if we let charities challenge each other's status is unthinkable.

If they'd wanted to, they could have taken a judicial review against the Charity Commission, but that wouldn't have hurt the LGBA directly (which was the whole point, after all) and would have maybe had a cost implication.

This has been a long haul, but I still haven't wrapped my head around how this was allowed to get so far or the absolute brass neck of Mermaids to attempt it.

Good thread by Dr Foran on Twitter

https://twitter.com/michaelpforan/status/1676977835448172544?s=46&t=4ig9oxXX7RdmDKwsMsuh1Q

i bet even as we speak The Guardian is in overdrive commissioning a range of articles about the most marginalised & vulnerable ever.

That line is going to haunt him forever isn't it! 😁

He deserves it to, boiledbeetle. It's a literary masterpiece.

Some of his greatest work in my opinion

It strikes me as very American, this deliberate abuse of the courts and legal system.

Twitter is entertaining this evening

You may need to click on the image to get the full tweet

@TWETMIRF Indeed 😂

I wonder if he was invited or if he asked to become a Director?

Comment from family member who isn't really up on all this, but just heard a radio announcement on it: "Mermaids say they would have won if they hadn't lost. Or something."

😁
If even the uninitiated can see through the bullshit, you know it's a mile high manure pile.

The GWPF is, like the LGBA, based at 55 Tufton Street.

Big Brother Watch and Feeding Britain are or were also based at 55 Tufton Street.

It's almost like some of the tenants of that building aren't right-wing.

If your greatest criticism of a charity is their address then you just may be clutching at straws a little