A religious organisation forced to register as a charity under legislation several years ago have been fighting an aggressive and unconstitutional take over ever since. Previous to forced charity registration the temple was run and managed democratically by community elders (who established the temple) for the benefit of the whole community.
Issues
- The Commission have allowed and approved a proven unconstitutional takeover by people the Commission now choose to recognise as trustees
- The Commission has not followed their own rules when engaging with this charity.
- In a disputed situation the Commission decisions have shown clear bias towards those they have decided to recognise as trustees, contrary to the charity constitution and the wishes of the community.
- The Commission has allowed the established organisations constitution to be ignored by the Commissions recognised trustees in order to wrest control of assets from the traditional community elders and take control away from the community and beneficiaries
- The Commission has chosen to label elders and others as vexatious and “unreliable” simply for challenging the Commission's unethical decisions.
- The Commission, fully aware of the contested nature and on-going dispute of the charity’s management, agreed a vesting order with the Commissions recognised trustees, allowing the trustees to take full control of the assets. This is the Commission acting outside their remit.
- The Commission allowed the trustees to use charitable funds to fund a vexatious litigation against elders
- Supported the trustees to use in excess of 25% of its funds on legal actions against its own community without having to apply for commission approval, required under current charity law.
- The Commission through its actions have admitted to the ousted elders and trustees, who are all individuals without computer competence, that the Commission considers that the person who has the logon to the online charity account is who the Commission considers as being in control of the charity.
- The Commission has ignored a Judge’s recommendation that no AGM should be held until the dispute is resolved, in favour of their recognised trustees
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Conclusions
Charity Sanity believes that issues in religious institutions forced by law to become charities are rife.
The Commission has little knowledge or understanding of faith organisations, the traditions that support the faith communities and their places of worship. As a result, they are supporting the hostile takeover and the destruction of generations of community cohesion in favour of a model and system that ignores and steamrollers over what has been in place for many years.
The Commission has chosen to ignore the concerns of the community, presuming that community members with surnames Singh and Kaur are the same person/people. Due to the number of complaints in those names they have labelled all ‘Singhs’ and ‘Kaurs’ as vexatious!!
The Commission have accepted false statements as facts from trustees and have also allowed trustees to engage in mis-use of charity funds without obtaining charity commission permission, a law that they insist charities must be governed by but fail to enforce. All so that the Commission can formally recognise the trustees the Commission prefers to deal with.
How can an inexperienced and unknowledgeable/ignorant case officer be in the position and be given the authority to decide to put aside generations of tradition because its too difficult to understand?
A clear lack of understanding of charity law by the Commission Officer managing the case and actions taken that are beyond the Commission's remit has allowed numerous mistakes to be made in this case.
The Commission's actions have caused a huge and damaging impact to the community. Elders with lifetimes of community service and exemplary reputations have died with their reputations destroyed due to the Commissions appalling actions.
This Community will lose its local place of worship and the heart of the community when the last elder dies, the community will no longer have a say. it is highly likely that the trustees (who have little stake in the community) will dispose of the building ie: liquidate an asset and encourage the congregation to worship elsewhere.
It's clear from this case and others that the Commission in its ignorance is failing the community based religions that were forced to register as charities 10 years ago. This community worked perfectly well until the point in time they registered.
In conversation a member of the community faith group mentioned that in their many years of campaigning they had met with several solicitors. These solicitors had stated that issues of this sort in faith communities (forced to change their generational model and convert to charities) are significant, with many charities having problems and needing legal support. If true, it is appalling that the faith bodies that traditionally support communities and congregations need to employ legal support instead of receiving help and support from the Commission.
