Commission will defend Judicial Review brought by the non-charitable organisation CAGE
Charity Commission statement on the outcome of a Judicial Review permissions hearing held on Thursday 23 July.
CAGE is not a charity and has never been a charity. Given the public statements made by representatives of CAGE in February about Mohammed Emwazi and the public anger and concern these comments generated, we sought information and assurances from charities which had funded or been connected with CAGE. We secured assurances that they were not funding CAGE and in the current circumstances had no future intention of doing so. Our aim in doing so was to protect the public trust and confidence in charity and ensure the trustees of the charities concerned were complying with their legal duties towards their charity. We remain of the view that this was the responsible course of action for the charity regulator to take.
We are pleased the High Court has today dismissed CAGE’s arguments that the commission breached its human rights and did not act fairly. The Court has directed that there should be a further hearing to consider CAGE’s remaining argument, that the commission acted outside its powers. We look forward to explaining to the Court why the commission’s engagement with these charities was firmly within our powers.