It is the first case in Singapore[1] which the apex court considered the issue of a breach of a charitable purpose trusts when a religious charity is alleged to have deviated from the fundamental principles upon which it was founded.

[15] On 30 June 2010, the learned Judith Prakash J, as she then was, held that the College is not a ministry of the Church but is an independent organisation constituted as an unincorporated association.

Also before the appellate court was the issue of whether the College's adoption (and teaching) of VPP, as alleged by the Respondents, would constitute such a fundamental shift that the College should be regarded as pursuing something so different from its original objects that it ceases to be entitled to use the Premises, as trustees holding the Premises must ensure that only persons/entities pursuing the objects of the trust will be allowed to enjoy the benefits under it.

[26] On the first two issues, while the Court of Appeal agreed with Prakash J that the College is not a ministry of the Church[27] and the College is an unincorporated association,[28] the latter finding is regarded by the appellate court as hardly of any consequence since a charity may exist in one of several legal structures with the most basic forms being the trust, the unincorporated association or the incorporated entity (see Peter Luxton, The Law of Charities (Oxford University Press, 2001) at 255).

[30] On the third issue, the appellate court also agreed with Prakash J that the Premises are impressed with a charitable trust for the joint use of the Church and the College.

Despite the widespread publicity which the case engendered, the Judges of Appeal pointed out that no one, including the Respondents, had intervened in the litigation on the basis that they were the current members of the Board and the Appellants have been in control of the College and running it since 1990.

[41] Notwithstanding the absence of such evidence (at trial in the High Court), the Court of Appeal – which took into account the fundamental doctrine of the College is the Confession of Faith – applied the rule of judicial notice[42] by taking cognisance of the well-known fact that the Confession of Faith “has been highly influential within Presbyterian churches worldwide, many of which use it as a standard of doctrine that is second only to the teaching contained within the Bible itself” to look into the relevant part of the Westminster Confession at Article VIII Ch 1 which reads as follows:[43]“The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them.

[46] The appellate court further held that the College's status as a beneficiary under the purpose trust over the Premises was not conditioned on its continued doctrinal alignment with the Church.

[47] The appellate court also endorsed the non zero-sum approach adopted by the English Court in Varsani v Jesani [1999] Ch 219 (“Varsani”) in exercising its power under s 13(1)(e)(iii) of the Charities Act 1993 (UK / England and Wales) to resolve a religious dispute between two groups of followers of a Hindu sect, each claiming to be adhering to the true faith, and it was not possible to determine which group had departed from the fundamental tenets of the faith.

A cy-pres scheme was settled in Varsani so that the sect's property was not appropriated to one group to the exclusion of the other as this would be contrary to the spirit in which the gift was made.

In Varsani, “the court accepted that under the law as it stood before 1960 [i.e., before the Charities Act 1960] it could not have made a scheme: ‘It could not be said that it was either impossible or impractical to carry out the purposes of the charity so long as either or both of the groups professed the faith … If either group continued to profess the faith then there would be no jurisdiction to make a cy-pres scheme’ (per Morritt LJ at 282).

However, the Court of Appeal approved a scheme under s 13(1)(e)(iii) [of the English Charities Act 1993] whereby the funds were divided between the majority and minority groups.

Chadwick LJ summarised the position (at 288): ‘The original purposes specified in the declaration of trust … are no longer a suitable and effective method of using the property … because the community is now divided and cannot worship together … Nothing that the court may decide will alter that.

S 13(1A) of the 1993 Act goes on to explain that “the appropriate considerations” in s 13(1) means (a) (on the one hand) the spirit of the gift concerned, and (b) (on the other) the social and economic circumstances prevailing at the time of the proposed alteration of the original purposes.

On 25 July 2012, after the parties had appeared before the Judges of Appeal on 11 April 2012 following an unsuccessful attempt to mutually agree on the terms of a scheme (the “Scheme”) as to how the Premises are to be maintained and used by the College and the Church, Chao Hick Tin JA delivered a supplementary judgment [2012] SGCA 37 [61] to designate a High Court judge to draw up the Scheme to: (a) equitably cater to the present and reasonably foreseeable future needs of the Church and the College without unfairly subordinating the interests of one institution to the interests of the other; (b) fairly apportion the obligations and responsibilities pertaining to the maintenance, upkeep and upgrading of the Premises between the Church and the College; (c) prevent or reduce the incidence of disputes concerning the use/occupation and maintenance of the Premises; and (d) devise a resolution process to determine operational issues that may arise from time to time.

[65] The details of the Scheme can be found in FEBC's semi-annual theological journal, The Burning Bush, July 2015, Volume 21, Number 2, pp. 83–91.