Falkirk sheriff dismisses Islamic centre trust dispute after finding case invoked supervisory jurisdiction

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] SC FAL 25
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Sheriff Court
• Judge:
  Sheriff S G Collins

Mohammed Imtiaz and two other pursuers raised the action against ten defenders seeking declarator that two meetings of the Falkirk Muslim Association at which they were removed were not held in accordance with the constitution of the Association and thus decisions taken at those meetings were ultra vires. The defenders tabled a plea of no jurisdiction and lodged a motion for summary decree.

The case was heard by Sheriff Simon Collins KC at Falkirk Sheriff Court, with Sanders, advocate, appearing for the pursuers and McGeough, solicitor, for the defenders.

Supervisory jurisdiction

Under the constitution of the Association, membership was open to all Muslims in the locality over the age of 18, with leadership taking the form of a General Council with 7 executive members, including a President and a Secretary. In addition, the General Council contained nine trustees elected by the General Council to hold via trust all real property and funds acquired or held by the Association. At the start of September 2023, the three pursuers were all trustees of the Association.

At an “emergency” meeting of the membership on 17 September 2023, a vote of no confidence was passed in the pursuers as trustees. A further meeting was convened on 1 October 2023 at which a vote was passed to expel them as trustees and appoint the defenders in their place. The pursuers averred that these meetings were not competently convened in terms of the constitution, there being no “emergency” justifying such a meeting and no notice given that votes would be taken on their expulsion as trustees.

The defenders’ agent submitted that the power to regulate the administrative powers of the Association lay exclusively with the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session, which included the exercise of tripartite powers under the constitutions of unincorporated associations. The sheriff court therefore had no jurisdiction to entertain the action, and it should be dismissed.

In reply, counsel for the pursuer referred to section 38 of the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, which gave the sheriff court powers it did not have previously. These included the powers to grant declarator and reduction relevant to the present action. This was not a public law action akin to Brown v Hamilton DC (1983), and there were reported actions of the sheriff court regulating the affairs of voluntary associations such as Bell v Trustees (1975) and Abbot v Forrest Hills Trossachs Golf Club (2000).

Essence of complaints

In his decision, Sheriff Collins said of determining jurisdiction: “The starting point, in deciding whether a particular dispute truly amounts an application to the supervisory jurisdiction, remains the decision in West v Secretary of State for Scotland (1992). In what are now familiar passages, [the court] rejected the proposition that the scope of the supervisory jurisdiction depended in any way upon a distinction between public law and private law.”

He continued: “West was explained and applied in Crockett v Tantallon Golf Club (2005), where the petitioner challenged his expulsion from a golf club. The respondent conceded that the club’s council had exercised a jurisdiction as described in West when it referred the complaint regarding the petitioner to a general meeting, but submitted that the membership at the meeting had not done so when it voted for expulsion. This latter decision was therefore not amenable to judicial review, and so the action should be dismissed.”

Noting that the cases relied upon by the pursuers predated Crockett, the sheriff said: “With all respect to the sheriffs principal, greater weight must be given to the opinion of Lord Reed [in West] insofar as there can be said to be any difference between them. No argument was made in either Bell or Abbott that the actions were incompetent because they involved an application to the supervisory jurisdiction.”

He concluded: “The essence of the pursuers’ complaints – what this case is truly about – is a claim that the committee and the general meeting have acted ultra vires of their powers under the Constitution in this regard in relation to their expulsion. The remedies sought by them are with a view to confining these powers within the limits of the Constitution. The jurisdiction being invoked in this action is therefore the supervisory jurisdiction, which is exclusive to the Court of Session.”

Sheriff Collins therefore sustained the defenders’ first plea in law and dismissed the action.