Out with the old, in with the new: religion, charitable status and the Charities Act 2006
The enactment of the Charities Act 2006 is widely viewed as one of the most momentous events in the recent history of English charity law, and the impact of the Act on the pre-existing law is still being debated. This paper inquires into the operation of the Act within the religious sphere. It seeks to explore the basis upon which charitable recognition was accorded within this sphere before the Act and to assess how far the law that was previously in force has been preserved, modified or rendered inoperative by the provisions of the Act. Three fundamental dimensions of the legal regime governing religious charities are especially relevant to this inquiry. The first dimension encompasses the elusive quest for the meaning of religion in the charitable sense. The second focuses on the long-standing requirement that religious purposes must be beneficial to the public in order to be charitable. The third is concerned with the human rights implications of conferring or withholding charitable status within the religious domain. Each dimension is examined in turn with a view to providing an insight into the complexities and difficulties inherent in the pre-existing law and the extent to which these have been addressed by the reforms contemplated by the Act.