CHARITIES

Scheme to exclude from membership persons wishing to end charitys opposition to field sports categories of applicant associated with support for field sports automatically excluded...Scheme to exclude from membership persons wishing to end charitys opposition to field sports categories of applicant associated with support for field sports automatically excluded for two years not in charitys best interestsRoyal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals v Attorney General and Others: ChD (Lightman J): 26 January 2001An animal welfare charity became aware of a number of campaigns encouraging supporters of field sports to join it in order to reverse its policy of campaigning for legislation to outlaw hunting with hounds.

The charity sought the guidance of the court as to whether it could exclude from membership persons who were likely to campaign against the existing policy in relation to hunting with hounds or adopt a scheme to implement that policy which permitted the society automatically to exclude from membership for two years any person who came within a number of specific categories intended to represent persons suspected of belonging or being sympathetic to one or more of the campaigns.David Unwin QC and Francesca Quint (instructed by Nabarro Nathanson) for the charity.

John Martin QC and Michael Patchett-Joyce (instructed by Charles Russell, Cheltenham) for the second, third and fourth defendants.

William Henderson (instructed by Treasury Solicitor) for the Attorney General.Held, declaring that the scheme could not be adopted, that what was really in question was not the right of individual members or prospective members to freedom of speech, but the freedom of association of the charity itself under article11 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; that that freedom embraced the freedom to exclude from association those whose membership it honestly believed to be damaging to the interests of the charity; that arbitrarily to exclude from membership persons to whom (if the full facts were allowed to be taken into account) no conceivable objection could be taken, would not be conducive to the charitys best interests; that applicants falling within a category from which inferences could be drawn should be invited to give reasons why they should nonetheless be admitted; and that the additional cost and inconvenience involved in allowing the categories to create only a rebuttable presumption in favour of rejection of any application for membership was justified by the critical importance of the charitys reputation for fairness to the ability of the charity to attract support, financial or otherwise, for its work.