Law and religion round-up – 14th August

Professor Alexis Jay agreed to chair the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the Jehovah’s Witnesses failed to head off the Charity Commission’s  inquiry into their safeguarding practices – and we discovered the identity of …

… The Minister for Faith and Integration

Readers may be as interested as we were to learn that the faith portfolio in the new Government has been given to Lord (Nick) Bourne of Aberystwyth. A barrister and former Professor of Law at Swansea, he was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Wales Office in May 2015 and, additionally, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government on 17 July 2016, where his responsibilities include faith and integration, community cohesion and racial equality. We came across the information about his appointment entirely by accident, in a report in Jewish News.

Charity Commission inquiry into Jehovah’s Witnesses to proceed

On Friday, Third Sector (£) reported that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Watch Tower and Bible Tract Society of Great Britain cannot prevent the Charity Commission from opening a statutory inquiry into the charity’s safeguarding practices, after the Court of Appeal had refused in Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Britain & Ors v The Charity Commission [2016] EWCA Civ 154 to set aside the Commission’s decision to open the inquiry. Continue reading