2. At the end of the lecture, students will be able to:-
1)Identify and list down the concept of charity.
2)Distinguish and affirm the relevant principles that
constitute charity.
3)Differentiate between Private Trust and Charitable
Trust.
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3. Charitable trusts are public trust.
The settlor/testator will create certain purposes
which are so beneficial to the community at large.
There is no formal statutory definition of charity
but its definition is important.
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5. Since there is no statutory definition of charity,
courts used the Preamble to the Statute of
Charitable Uses 1601 or sometimes referred as
the Statute of Elizabeth.
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6. Whereas lands, chattels, money have been
given by sundry well disposed persons, some
for the relief of aged, impotent and poor people,
the maintenance of sick and maimed soldiers
and mariners, schools of learning, free schools
and scholars in universities, the repair of
bridges, port, haven, causeway, churches, sea
banks and highways, the education and
preferment of orphans; the relief, stock
maintenance for houses
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7. of correction; the marriage of poor maids; the
supportation aid and help of young tradesmen,
handicraftsmen and person’s decayed; the relief
or redemption of prisoners or captives, the aid or
ease of any poor inhabitants concerning
payments of fifteens, setting out of soldiers and
other taxes which lands, chattels and money
have not been employed according to the
charitable intent of the givers by reasons of
frauds, breaches of trust and negligence.
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8. Does not explain/define the word charity.
Remedy abuses in the administration of charities.
Purpose of the charitable trust will have to be
within “spirit and intendment of the Preamble.”
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9. Lord Wilberforce:
“The Appellant must show … that the public benefit
is of a kind within the spirit and intendment of the
statute of Elizabeth.”
Preamble recognised a number of object as
charitable.
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10. The Statute of Charitable Uses 1601 was
repealed by section 13(1) the 1888 Act.
Section 13(2) preserved the preamble.
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11. Lord McNaughten summarised the scope of
charity.
“Charity in its legal sense comprises four
principal divisions ; trusts for the relief of
poverty, trust for the advancement of education;
trust for the advancement of religion; and trust
for other purposes beneficial to the community,
not falling under any of the preceding heads.”
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12. The Committees on the law and the Practice
relating to Charitable Trust 1952.
Recommended new statutory definition of charity.
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13. Repealed 1888 Act.
Section 38(4): Any reference in any enactment
or document to a charity within the meaning,
purview and interpretation of Charitable Uses
1601, or of preamble to it, shall be construed as
a reference to a charity within the meaning
which the words bears as a legal term according
to the law of England and Wales.
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14. S96(1): ‘charity’ means any institution,
corporate or not, which is established for
charitable purposes and is subject to the control
of the High Court in the exercise of the court’s
jurisdiction with respect to charities.
S97(1): ‘charitable purposes’ means purposes
which are exclusively charitable according to the
law of England and Wales.
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15. Restated the categories of charity in simple and
modern language.
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16. Govt decided not the promote a legislative
definition.
Scope based on decision of court and charity
Commissioner.
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17. Charity in its legal sense comprises four principal
divisions;
1) Trust for the relief of poverty;
2) Trust for advancement of education;
3) Trust for advancement of religion; and
4) Trust for other purposes beneficial to the
community.
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18. To be charitable a purpose must satisfy certain
tests : it must either fall in the preamble to the
ancient statute of Elizabeth I ( sometimes
referred to as the Statute of Charitable Uses Act
1601) or within one of the of categories of
charitable purposes laid down by Lord
MacNagthen and derived form the preamble,
and in the case of the fourth of those categories
it must be within ancient
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19. statute, either directly or by analogy with decided
cases on the same point, or it must have been
declared to be charitable by some other statute. In
addition, it must be for the public benefit, that is to
say, it must be both beneficial and available to a
sufficient section of community.
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20. Lord Wilberforce :
1) Since it is a classification of convenience, they
may well be purposes which do not fit neatly into
one or other of the heading
2) The words used must not be given the force of a
statute to be construed
3) The law of charity is a moving subject which
may well be evolved even since 1891.
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21. Each heads must involves 2 elements
a) An element of benefit; and
b) An element of public benefit (except for relief of
poverty).
The requirements of public benefit varies form
head to head.
It must be exclusively for charitable purposes.
21
22. Oppenheim v Tobacco Securities Trust Co Ltd
[1951] AC 297 : certain trust for the education of
children of employees of former employees of
British American Tobacco Co Ltd or any of its
subsidiary or allied companies.
No CT
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23. Charity Law in Malaysia derived from English Law.
No equivalent of Charities Act 1960 or Charities
Act 1993 in Malaysia.
Sarawak: Charitable Trust Ordinance (Cap 102)
deals with administration of charitable trust in that
states.
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24. ‘Charitable trust’: any trust or grant of, or
endowment . . . for any religious, educational or
other charitable purposes.
It leaves the meaning of ‘charitable’ to judicial
interpretation.
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