# SU-Essentials-Students-unions-and-the-law  ## Metadata - Author: [[wonkhe.com]] (Jim Dickinson) - Full Title: SU-Essentials-Students-unions-and-the-law - Category: #Source/articles - URL: https://wonkhe.com/wp-content/wonkhe-uploads/2023/06/SU-Essentials-Students-unions-and-the-law.pdf ## Highlights - Organisations with charitable status cannot use assets for any purpose other than the pursuit of charitable objectives. The assets of a charity can never be used for private benefit. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45t9ygc3p1haewcqnck1t0t)) - Certain political activities and types of trading are subject to restrictions ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45taxp7cy4rt1b71acdm5f3)) - trustees, must not be paid unless the constitution of a charity, and the Charity Commission, authorise it. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tb8bbd7k2fq6tkv3n6a99)) - Charities cannot raise equity investment. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tbcc1xfvxpq0hpft9vgk3)) # Sussex (Baldry v Feintuck) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tbp2yq23apb5cbxhz0cqz)) - The court found that the objects of the union were confined to charitable educational purposes – and the amendment to the union’s constitution was invalid ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tbzx2hyg4wax1mbzf63cr)) - the court resolved that the provision of money to finance the adoption outside the university of that corporate conclusion did not form part of the educational process. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tc7henygdfzzre6s4bdyn)) # London Hospital Medical College ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tcecj1qdrrb6q18b3e2k8)) - 1976 – Inland Revenue challenged whether a students’ union was charitable. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tcr1fsck0qn26wtpktfrw)) - The court held that the union was charitable because the union existed solely to further, and did further, the educational purposes of the college. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45td2cpqpd0g1rdj2bne022)) # Attorney general v Ross ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tdbwaw03c6nw0mz97hpqy)) - 1985 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tdebhfrz7btq1rp6abj7m)) - Polytechnic of North London SU wanted to donate funds to the striking mineworkers and donate in aid of victims of the famine in Ethiopia. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tf3f3gndgmrfbw963ve0p)) - The Attorney General viewed these payments as being for purposes outside the scope of the union’s objects and therefore ultra vires – and sought an injunction restraining the payments. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tf5shhger0gr8xwbxdcjg)) - The non-charitable activities which its constitution authorised it to carry on were ancillary means by which the overall charitable purpose could be pursued. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tercb9ev094j9ngtc4dt0)) - carrying on of political activities or the pursuit of political objectives cannot, in the ordinary way, be a charitable purpose ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tghcagrb0met5zw7xz0b8)) - But I can see nothing the matter with an educational charity, in the furtherance of its educational purposes, encouraging students to develop their political awareness or to acquire knowledge of, and to debate, and to form views on political issues. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tgx7fekjmyvjpxhp7nfpr)) ## Webb v O’Doherty ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45th047v8649852yny28bhx)) - 1991 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45th3df8bq851ebegw79j19)) - Anglia Polytechnic Student Union (now ARU SU) union tried to implement a resolution to support a campaign against the Gulf War. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45th9ngjtdsqbk5k9k8pjdp)) - The issue was not so much the passing of the resolution, but that the exec acted on it by using SU funds. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45thr639yx08j1vy8nqghca)) - “There is a clear distinction between the discussion of political matters, or the acquisition of information which may have a political content, and a campaign on a political issue. “There is no doubt that campaigning, in the sense of seeking to influence public opinion on political matters, is not a charitable activity. “It is, of course, something which students are, like the rest of the population, perfectly at liberty to do in their private capacities, but it is not a proper object of the expenditure of charitable money ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tjewk51mb3z5bs2cz5mff)) - Over the years, the courts have accepted that a whole range of activities with political characteristics can be pursued by an educational charity as ancillary. - These include research, discussion and debate on social and economic problems and, also, reaching and expressing a collective decision on these issues. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tkbwq90qej368150xa1t4)) - Students unions may use funds and facilities to campaign on issues which affect members as students. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tkm38be0qst282d822kb7)) - ==Students’ unions may not use funds to promote or support campaigns which do not affect members as students==. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tkrbnvfba5z8495e45vet)) - ==Funds cannot be used for any party political purpose but reasonable expenditure on debating matters of common concern is permissible== ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tmy3htg4fns8158ts1e27)) - Political clubs and societies are okay and can affiliate to national organisations to obtain educational materials or information ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tms9b129xncjqh3zrnzqt)) - Education Act 1994 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h45tn6vt69d7ve1whsgf64b5))