The Upper Tier tribunal has refused an appeal by an academic body looking to press the Charity Commission to investigate a membership charity amid claims of “harmful and discriminatory practices”.
The City Doctoral Researchers Association, which is part of City St George’s, University of London, saw its appeal refused at a hearing last week.
The appeal concerned the regulator’s handling of a complaint about the European Academy of Optometry and Optics charity.
The CDRA initially filed an appeal in January 2025 asking the charity tribunal to review the commission’s decision not to investigate the CDRA’s concerns about the EAOO.
The appeal was refused last July and the commission said in a November 2024 email to the CDRA that “only certain decisions can be challenged through the commission’s decision review process and ultimately the tribunal”.
The email said: “Our assessment on whether to take forward your concerns about a charity does not fall within that remit.”
The CDRA alleged that the regulator’s “failure to act” on the complaint “disregarded evidence of harmful and discriminatory practices” at the charity, the July 2025 judgment said.
In a judgment published last week, the charity tribunal said the CDRA renewed its applications to the Upper Tribunal and the judge refused to grant appeal permission in decisions released on 22 and 30 July.
“The applicant applied for those decisions to be reconsidered at a hearing,” the judgment said.
The Upper Tribunal said it might be open to the CDRA seeking a judicial review of the commission’s actions in the High Court.
“Alternatively, where the actions of the commission amount to maladministration, a complaint can be taken to the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman,” the tribunal judgment says.
“Depending upon the circumstances, the High Court may have power to require a public agency to exercise powers or to make a decision.
“In contrast, the [charity tribunal] only has the jurisdiction conferred upon it by statute (in this case the Charities Act 2011), and that jurisdiction does not extend to a power to review a decision by the commission to decline to make any decision under section 34 (whether to remove or not remove an institution from the register)”.
A spokesperson for the Charity Commission said: “The Charity Commission welcomes this judgment which further clarifies the jurisdiction of the tribunal in charity appeals.”
The City Doctoral Researchers Association and the European Academy of Optometry and Optics have been contacted for comment.