Legal Prohibition on charitable political activities: content, procedure and reform

本项目对慈善法中禁止实质性政治活动的现行规定、规则的发展、向政府和立法者提出的有争议的问题以及改革可能导致的关键法律、社会和道德关切进行了严格的法理分析。在质疑是否应该进行改革和制定改革建议时，该项目还审查了英国法律的其他领域如何处理监管政治活动的问题，以及不同司法管辖区如何监管其慈善机构的政治活动。这一法律领域引发了有趣的问题：慈善机构可以游说议会、写信给议员或发起运动来修改法律吗？慈善机构是否应该能够讨论议员在有争议的问题上的投票记录，或者支持政党参选？慈善机构发起广播运动，提出特定的政治哲学，或者主张改变这个国家或另一个国家的政府政策，这是否合适？尽管自1601年以来，慈善机构一直处于社会变革的核心，但在20世纪初，它们在推动法律或政策变革方面的贡献受到了监管机构对政治目的的禁止的限制。根据目前的慈善法规，慈善机构不得将政治活动作为其主要目的(例如，寻求立法禁止公众使用烟花爆竹的组织将是在追求政治目的)。慈善机构只能从事附属于其法律上可接受的主要慈善目的并促进其主要慈善目的的政治活动(例如，寻求保护动物或为导盲犬提供导盲犬的组织将追求慈善目的，此类组织可以作为辅助活动进行游说，以寻求立法禁止公众使用烟花爆竹，因为烟花会伤害动物)。尽管实施了近100年，但慈善监管的这一方面是有争议的，而且这些规则往往被证明很难在实践中应用。这些规则由慈善委员会在向高等法院上诉时适用，但由于缺乏财政资源，上诉程序很少被搁置。出于这个原因，这一法律领域没有得到法院或政策制定者的任何有意义的分析。后者令人惊讶，因为该领域提出的担忧直指当前慈善监管的核心。这个项目解决了这些问题。

This project provides a rigorous jurisprudential analysis of current regulation in charity law of the prohibition against substantial political activities, the rule's development, the controversial questions raised for government and legislators, and of the crucial jural, social and moral concerns which reform may dictate. In questioning whether there should be reform and in framing reform proposals, this project also examines how other areas of English law have dealt with the issue of regulating political activities and also how different jurisdictions have regulated the political activities of their charities. This area of law raises interesting questions: can charities lobby Parliament, write to MPs or campaign to change the law? Should charities be able to discuss the voting records of MPs on controversial issues or support political parties for election? Would it be appropriate for charities to launch broadcasting campaigns putting forward a particular political philosophy, or arguing for a change in government policy in this country or in another country? Although charities have been at the heart of social change since 1601, at the beginning of the 20th century their contribution to pushing for legal or policy change was restricted by a regulatory prohibition on political purposes. Under current charity regulation charities may not pursue political activities as their main purpose (e.g. an organisation seeking legislation to prohibit the public from using fireworks would be pursuing a political purpose). Charities may only pursue political activities that are ancillary to their main legally acceptable charitable purpose and which are in furtherance of their main charitable purpose (eg an organisation seeking to protect animals or to provide guidedogs would be pursuing a charitable purpose and such organisation could lobby as an ancillary activity to seek legislation to prohibit the public from using fireworks on the basis that fireworks distressed animals). Although in effect for almost 100 years, this aspect of charity regulation is controversial and the rules have often proved to be difficult to apply in practice. The rules are applied by the Charity Commission with appeal to the High Court but, due lack of financial resources, the appeal process is rarely undetaken. For this reason, this area of law has escaped any meaningful analysis by the courts or policy makers. The latter is surprising since the concerns raised by the area go to the heart of current charity regulation. This project addresses these concerns.