The Modern Law Of Charities

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

It is unusual, in the precise world of law, to find instances of where ‘near enough is good enough’. This book explores when this is possible, referring to property and monetary transfers, under the increasingly important and influential cy-près doctrine. The doctrine decrees that, when literal compliance is impossible or infeasible, the intention of a donor or testator should be carried out ‘as nearly as possible’. Over the past thirty years, this doctrine has marched into other legal territory where ‘as near as possible’ is also considered sufficient, such as in class actions litigation and under non-charitable trusts. Discussing and analyzing key developments across the Commonwealth jurisdictions and the USA, this book considers whether there is a new and overarching definition which can be attributed to the cy-près doctrine. It asks whether there is a doctrinal symmetry of analysis that truly renders it a body of ‘cy-près law’ in the modern context and whether the doctrine can be expected to play an even greater role in the future. This book is of interest to researchers and practitioners working in trusts and charity law, property law, contract law, and class actions jurisprudence.

Charity Law & Social Policy explores contemporary law, policy and practice in a range of modern common law nations in four parts and from the perspective of how this has evolved in the UK. As progenitor of a system bequeathed to its colonies and after centuries of leadership in developing the core principles, policies and precedents that subsequently shaped its development, the contribution of England & Wales, the originating jurisdiction, is first described and analysed in detail in Parts 1 and 2. These broadly sketch the parameters and role of ‘charity’ – seen as a mix of public and private interests - then address the law’s role in protecting, policing, adjusting and supporting charity. This provides the critical dimensions for the comparative analysis of experience in the common law nations that constitutes the main part of the book. Part 3, in 5 chapters, provides an analysis of the legal functions as they apply to type of need and thereby give effect to social policy in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America. Part 4 concludes with three chapters that appraise political influence as a factor in aligning charity law with social policy to create a facilitative environment for appropriate charitable activity. Attention is given to the central role of the regulator, contemporary charity law frameworks and definitional boundaries.